Lethandhrel One-Eye, Dawnguard
by AdarieGlitterwings
Summary: She's saved the world once. Can she do it again, knowing now who she is? *All credit to Bethesda Softworks*
1. Wake Up Call

*All credit to Bethesda Softworks*

Bringing the axe down on the log, I wipe the sweat from my brow before adding the pieces to the pile next to me. I've been chopping wood for the Bannered Mare for the past week, trying to come to terms with what I learnt at High Hrothgar. How could I be such a person? Why would I do that sort of thing? I can remember every decision that brought me to that… organisation, but…

Lydia had visited the second day after my return, curious as to what had happened and why I hadn't retrieved her. Loathe to explain in detail, I merely expressed my wish to travel alone for a while. After telling me that she's always there if I need to talk and I know where she is, she returned to Dragonsreach, leaving me with the axe and the logs.

The sun set over the city walls a good couple of hours ago. I take the chunks of firewood into the inn, dropping them on the now rather large pile next to the fire and accept my payment from Hulda. Leaving the inn, meaning to chop another bagful before heading to bed, I notice a commotion going on at the gate. Running down the road, I find the gate guards fighting a small group of vampires that somehow made it past the guards outside without being noticed.

Drawing my Dwarven blade, I add my efforts to those of the guards, and soon the trio of bloodsuckers lie on the cobbles. Making my way back to the inn, I come to a decision. Saving the world from Alduin was only part of my redemption, and even then I'm not sure it would count, seeing as I had no memory of what I was redeeming myself for. Solving the latest crisis would make up the next part.

Unfolding my map in my rented room, I find the little annotation I'd made when I first heard about the Dawnguard. The little cross, almost hidden on the edge of the Rift, had smudged slightly when I'd folded the parchment, but I can still tell where the fort is supposed to be. Tucking the map back into my bag, I settle down and soon doze off.

The next morning, I am back to my old ways of waking before the sun. Leaving the inn, I follow the road, past the blood-stained stones and through the great gates. I haven't travelled far down the road – I haven't even passed the stables yet – when a courier stops me.

"I've been looking for you." He cries the familiar greeting. I swear they all follow a script. "Got something I'm supposed to deliver – your hands only. Let's see here… there's a new museum opening in Dawnstar. I've been told to tell everyone about the free admission. Looks like that's it. Got to go." After handing over the note, he jogs off up the road to the city.

Unfolding the slightly crumpled parchment, I read the contents as I wander down the road.

_Silus Vesuius Presents: The Museum of the Mythic Dawn. A History of the Cult that Toppled the Septim Dynasty. Inside of his very own home in the great capital of the Pale, Dawnstar. Free and open to all citizens of Skyrim._

Huh. Wondering what Cousin would have thought of this, I cross the bridge and head up the road around the Throat of the World. As I near Valtheim, the bandits seem to take a dislike to my presence, and immediately attack me. At least it's a change from attempting to swindle me.

As the third bandit falls before me, scorched from my Fire Breath, I can see what attracted me to my previous lifestyle. There is a certain satisfaction in finishing off an opponent. But that must be the dragon part of me talking.

Once all the bandits lie dead and looted, I mine a little of the iron vein near the far tower, then return to the road. Using the cook-pot in front of the door to the tower, I create a bowl of soup to sip on the way down the road.

Dodging a bear that is bathing in the river and taking much offense at my passing, I tuck the empty bowl into my bag before mining another ore vein for the iron it holds. These veins are very shallow indeed – none of the ones I've found so far have yielded more than three chunks of ore each before being mined out.

A short way further on, a wolf and a spider join forces in an attempt to stop me, neither of them to much avail. A little way down the road, I jog past an imperial prisoner convoy, which must have passed the pair of creatures not long before I met them, making me wonder how they were not attacked themselves. Leaving the soldiers shouting at me about my interfering in Imperial business, I ignore them as I cross the bridge and follow the road around the bends in the cliff. As I turn a twist in the road, leading further up the cliff face, a bear leaps at me out of nowhere, thankfully misjudging the distance – and the drop – and thumping to the ground behind me. This, of course, means it takes me a little less effort to slay the beast.

Further on up the road, I spot a sabre cat lounging right across the cobbles. Crouching down behind a thin bush, I nock an arrow, and loose it towards the creature's striped hide. This merely seems to startle the beast, but my next arrow is all it takes to kill it. I don't get the chance to retrieve my arrows though, as the corpse slides down the slope, picking up speed as it goes. I shrug and continue up the hill, encountering a pair of massive spiders at a place where the slope flattens out for a short distance. Can I not travel a few feet without something wanting to kill me?

"Fus Ro Dah!" I send the pair flailing over the edge of the cliff to a rocky death below. Behind me, the wind's caress of the rocky face causes a hollow echo, and turning I find I stand in front of a cave. Curiously, I draw my bow and sneak inside.

The first room of the cave is a deep hole, with water at the bottom and a dead elk surrounded by skeevers floating in it. The skeevers somehow notice me at the top of the hole, and rush up the ramp around the edge of the hole. Three shots later, three dead skeevers gather at the bottom of the ramp.

The rest of the cave is occupied by a coven of witches, with a room full of spiders in one part. Three-quarters of the way through the caves, I find a cage in which is locked a spriggan, guarded by a witch and a hagraven. After defeating the hagraven and her human apprentice, I loot the room then, hoping against hope, unlock the cage.

Instead of attacking me, like I expected, the forest guardian lopes out of the room through the next corridor. Following her, I find that her next obstacle in her escape from the caves is a grate. Pulling the chain to open it, I turn away from the exit and instead loot the barrels in the room, giving her a head start. Next to an alchemy table, there is a chest in which reside a couple of potions, some gold and a strange crystalline orb. As soon as the ball touches the skin of my hands, a female voice resounds through the room.

"A new hand touches the beacon." It says. "Listen. Hear me and obey! A foul darkness has seeped into my temple. A darkness that you will destroy. Return my beacon to Mount Kilkreath, and I will make you the instrument of my cleansing light." The voice fades, and I swap the beacon for my map.

Using the lab as a table, I find Mount Kilkreath and notice that there is a shrine to Meridia there. I'd guessed as much from what the voice had said – Meridia is the Daedric Prince of life and light. Replacing my map in its pocket in my satchel, I leave the cave.

Obviously, spriggans are very fast runners, as there is no sign of the one I saved anywhere along the road. Following the road in my original direction, I soon come across a man slumped among scattered sacks and household goods.

"Are they gone?" he asks me as I approach.

"Are you ok?" I ask in response – he's sat at the top of a hill, there's no way he wouldn't know if they were gone or not.

"Bandits attacked and ransacked my cart. Can you help me?"

"What can I do?"

"My camp is nearby in the ruins of Nilheim. Get me there safely and you'll be rewarded." That sounds a little iffy – what sort of person camps in ruins? I gesture to him to lead the way, then behind him silently draw my sword.

He leads the way across the bridge behind him.

"It's just across the bridge and up that hill." He says. A little further on, he says: "We're close now, I can see the camp." As we reach the bottom of a couple of steps, He turns, and I quickly hide my sword behind me.

"Wait here." The man says. "I'll be right back with your reward." He jogs towards the ruined tower a little way ahead, then draws a bow and quiver out from behind a rock.

"Looks like we've got ourselves another fool!" He cries to the other occupants of the camp. I was right to be suspicious. I ready myself for battle, and quite handily the bandits have all grouped together to charge me.

"Fus Ro Dah!" I Shout, sending them all flying backwards, bouncing off of each other. A small part of me – the part of the old me that remains – wants to laugh. Instead, I rush towards the con man and hack away at him, not giving him much of a chance to aim straight. Wondering why he doesn't put the bow away and draw his dagger like all the other bowmen I've faced, I slay him as the rest of the bandits, who have finally recovered from their little tumble, again charge at me.

A few minutes of hack and slash later, the bandit gang lies dead with its leader, their bodies and camp looted of all valuables; the ore vein at the bottom of the hill near the lake depleted of iron. I return to the road and continue my journey, following the sign posts for Riften. Across another bridge, and a lone wolf launches its hairy hide at me, teeth bared and giving me an easy strike straight into its skull. Silly creature didn't even get the chance to yelp.

Despite having an excellent view of my prowess with a blade, a thief dashes across the bridge and attempts to rob me. I know from past experience I won't be able to talk myself out of this, so instead I merely inform her of my limited patience. Ignoring the threat, as I knew she would, the thief attempts to slaughter me for my riches, and gets killed in the attempt.

I amaze myself regularly at the short amount of notice I pay in battle these days.

A short distance down the road, a bear takes offense at my existence, but this time I have a trio of Stormcloaks to help with my fight for survival. As I hack away with my recently recharged blade, they pepper the beast's hide with arrows, which I retrieve when the creature is dead. The Stormcloaks don't seem that interested in having their arrows back – they're already continuing their own journey – so I add them to my quiver instead.

A little while later, I realise I've taken a wrong turning, so I follow the road back to the last intersection and take the turning instead. Causing me to run into an assassin. Sigh.

While the lizard is failing in her task, a pair of wolves join the fight – on the assassin's side, of course. Leaving the Argonian in a pool of her own blood, I quickly deal with the wolves then retrieve all the valuable items from their corpses – how the hell did a wolf get an amethyst stuck in its teeth?

Oh, by the Nine, now a troll is limbering up for a fight. Using Fire Breath to recoil it for the time it takes me to reach the ugly brute, I use the momentum of my charge to add extra oomph to my first attack. After a couple of swipes with my blade, the troll is recovered enough to attempt attacks of its own, which I dodge nimbly before Shouting again. Soon, the troll is as dead as the wolves behind me, and I continue along the road between the orange-leafed trees of the Rift.

Two more wolves and a troll later, I notice a disturbance going on outside a wooden-fenced compound. Closing the distance, I find the Orcs of the stronghold fighting furiously against a giant, which is very far from home, it seems. Joining the fight, I send the giant toppling to the ground with Unrelenting Force, then launch arrow after arrow into its thick skin, while the last remaining live Orc who is fighting sends shards of ice at it. Soon, the great man-like creature thuds to the ground dead, and I approach the woman who I assume to be the shaman of the tribe.

"What's going on here?" I ask.

"Please, our tribe suffers, and we need help." She responds. "Our chief, Yamarz, was once a strong and proud warrior. Now he is stricken, cursed. He is weak, and so our tribe is weak. The giants sense this, and intrude on our territory. Now they assault our very home. Yamarz refuses help, but I sense that you may be just what we need."

"What can I do?"

"Yamarz has demanded we stay inside the walls." The shaman explains. "We cannot leave. I must petition Malacath for relief. This curse must be lifted, but I cannot travel to Malacath's shrine. The ritual must be done here, and I do not have the materials I need. I beg of you, can you bring me troll fat and a daedra heart? I have no wish to depend on a stranger, but I have no choice."

"If I cannot find you when I return, who do I ask for?" I query.

"Atub. Please hurry; we are counting on you." She replies simply, then disappears from the watchtower upon which she stood.

Returning to the road, I continue along towards Riften. As the walls of the city appear through the trees, two more wolves attack me, both of which I make short work before jogging through the back gate into the city.

I'm already exhausted from my journey, so I head straight for the inn and rent the room.


	2. First Meetings

The next morning, before I leave the city, I use the forge at the smithy to turn the hides I'd collected into hide bracers, which weigh less than the hides did, somehow. Leaving the city via the back gate, I travel down the empty space between the wall and a rocky cliff-face, reaching a road leading to the blocked off gate on the other side of the keep. Following the road towards a bridge across a stream, three wolves leap out of the surrounding trees, ganging up on me. Three slices with my sword and three split throats later, the wolves lie skinned naked behind me as I duck into a crack in the cliff-face on the left side of the road, marked as the entrance to the track to Fort Dawnguard by an almost completely rotten wooden sign.

Emerging from the darkness of the short passage, I find before me a snow covered track leading into a deep ravine, into which a waterfall cascades, creating a pool at the right. Near this pool, a young blond Nord hesitates. The young man approaches me when he spots me.

"Oh, hey there!" He says brightly. "You here to join the Dawnguard too? Truth us, I'm a little nervous – I've never done anything like this before. I hope you don't mind if I walk up with you?" I shrug, then continue along the road, slower so the kid can keep pace. "I'm Agmaer. Hey, uh, don't tell Isran I was afraid to meet him by myself. Not the nest first impression for a new vampire hunter, I guess. I heard what's going on – the vampires, the Dawnguard, all of it. I wanted to help. So here I am. You've probably killed lots of vampires, huh? I'm sure Isran will sign you right up. Not sure he'll take me. I hope so." Rounding a bend in the track at the top of a short rise, a great castle comes into view. It is immense – the grey stone is incredibly intimidating, and showing absolutely no sign of the building's age at all.

"That must be it! Fort Dawnguard… wow. Bigger than I expected. Where is everybody?" The boy's right – despite the size of the place, it seems deserted. Another short, sharp twist in the path, and we reach the massive wooden doors, up a short flight of steps glowing golden in the light of two braziers. "I guess this is it. Wish me luck!" Agmaer pushes open one great door and disappears inside. As he does so, a man wearing armour I've never seen before appears round a corner, probably from the wooden walkway around the front of the castle I'd spotted from the track.

"Here to join the Dawnguard? Good. Isran will decide if you've got what it takes. Go on, he's right inside." The man takes station next to the great doors as I follow Agmaer into the massive circular entry hall.

It is well lit, open to the sky above and lit around the edge by braziers. There are three exits into the rest of the fort, and a balcony surrounds it. The centre is edged by four curved pools, covered with iron grates so no-one steps into them, and in the middle of this area, a dark man in the same style armour as the fellow outside argues with a Vigilant of Stendarr.

"Why are you here, Tolan?" Asks the Redguard, who must be Isran. "The Vigilants and I were finished with each other a long time ago."

"You know why I'm here." The Vigilant retorts. "The Vigilants are under attack everywhere. The vampires are much more dangerous than we believed."

"And now you want to come running to safety with the Dawnguard, is that it? I remember Keeper Carcette telling me repeatedly that Fort Dawnguard is a crumbling ruin, not worth the expense and manpower to repair. And now that you've stirred up the vampires against you, you come begging for my protection?"

"Isran, Carcette is dead. The Hall of the Vigilants… everyone… they're all dead. You were right, we were wrong. Isn't that enough for you?"

"Yes, well…" Isran seems to back down, if only slightly. "I never wanted any of this to happen. I tried to warn all of you… I am sorry, you know." He turns away from the Nord and takes a step towards me. "So who are you? What do you want?"

"I'm here to join the Dawnguard." I reply.

"Got a fire in your belly to kill vampires, eh? Good for you. But look around – there's really not much to join yet. I've only just started rebuilding the order."

"What can I do to help?" I ask him.

"I need someone out in the field, taking the fight to the damn vampires, while we're getting the fort back into shape… Tolan was telling me about some cave that the Vigilants were poking around in. Seemed to think it was related to these recent vampire attacks." He turns back to the Vigilant. "Tolan, tell her about, what was it, Dimhollow?"

"Yes, that's it. Dimhollow Crypt. Brother Adalvald was sure it held some long lost vampire artefact of some kind. We didn't listen to him any more that we did Isran. He was at the Hall when it was attacked…"

"That's good enough for me." Isran comments. "Go see what the vampires were looking for in this Dimhollow Crypt. With any luck, they'll still be there. Here, you should take a crossbow." He says, handing me one. I've never used one before, but it seems pretty easy to work out. "Good for taking out those fiends before they get too close. Feel free to poke around the fort and take what you need. There isn't much yet, but you're welcome to anything you can use."

"I'll meet you at Dimhollow." Pipes up Tolan. "It's the least I can do to avenge my fallen comrades."

"Tolan, I don't think that's a good idea. You Vigilants were never trained for –"

"I know what you think of us." The Nord interrupts. "You think we're soft, that we're cowards. You think our deaths proved our weakness. Stendarr grant that you do not have to face the same test and be found wanting." He turns back to me. "I'm going to Dimhollow Crypt. Perhaps I can be of some small assistance to you." He heads off out the door.

Isran spots Agmaer hovering in the shadows. "You there, boy. Stop skulking in the shadows and step up here. What's your name?"

"I'm, uh… my name is Agmaer, sir." He stammers.

"Do I look like a sir to you, boy? I'm not a soldier, and you're not joining the army."

"Yes, si- Isran."

"Didn't I tell you to step forward? Hmm… farm boy, eh? What's your weapon?"

"Uh, my weapon?" Agmaer looks even more nervous than he did before. "I mostly just use my pa's axe, when wolves are attacking the goats or something."

Isran tosses his head back in laughter. "'My pa's axe', Stendarr preserve us! Don't worry; I think we can make a Dawnguard out of you. Here, take this crossbow and let's see how you shoot."

"Uh, crossbow?" Agmaer asks. "I've never –"

"Yes, a crossbow. Best thing for killing vampires. Just take a few shots at those crates over there."

As Agmaer follows Isran's orders, I explore the lower floors, finding a forge with a smelter, which I use to make iron ingots before heading out the door and back through the crevice towards Riften.

I haven't travelled far when a crazed High Elf attacks me, throwing lightning at me while waving an orcish dagger around wildly in his other hand. Dodging the lightning is no mean feat, but I soon get close enough to slash at the man with my Dwarven blade, cutting off the hand casting the spell before hacking the fellow's neck open. Picking out the valuables from his bag, I continue along the road and follow the wall to the gate into the city.

I descend the stairs and walk along the wooden walkway along the stagnant canal to the alchemy shop, Elgrim's Elixirs. Once inside, I use the lab to make several potions, then sell the results to the woman who must be the wife of the owner, before returning to the market and selling the rest of my loot to a Dark Elf at his stall.

Leaving Riften, I follow the road past the three watchtowers to Fort Greenwall, which has already been re-occupied by a bandit gang. I can't be bothered clearing out the inside, so I deal with the ones outside, loot their corpses, then continue down the road, dealing with a pair of wolves along the way, and through the mining town of Shor's Stone. The route between the hamlet and Valtheim is interrupted by many angry creatures, and a thief who is stupid enough to try to rob a heavily armed adventurer, who is by no means in a good mood by that time.

Passing the river towers, I decide to detour to Riverwood to drop off my latest collection of items I want to keep. It's getting late as well, so I'll probably rent a room there. Crossing the bridge, I pass a trio of Imperials escorting their prisoner to Solitude.

I reach the quiet town at sunset, and duck into the Trader first to sell off what I'd collected since Riften. At the inn, I make sure the door is closed behind me before opening the secret door, though I'm not entirely sure why; Delphine isn't coming back and I wouldn't be surprised if Orgnar knew about the room anyway. Into the chest goes the dragon priest's mask, the ivory dragon claw and several other things. Returning to the common room, I rent one of the rooms on the other side and almost immediately fall asleep.


	3. Dimhollow Crypt

Leaving the inn the next morning, I take a deep breath of the fresh, cold air before setting off down the road northwards. It's very quiet out this morning – I only pass the occasional guard and traveller until I reach the snowline, when a massive white bear throws itself out of the wilderness alongside the road. My first attack with my sword merely bounces off of the creature's matted fur. It opens its big-toothed mouth to bite at me, and I take the opportunity to slash open its face, using its mouth as a way of bypassing the tangled hair. The bear roars in pain, and I hack again, slicing its face wide open and finally killing it.

Not much further down the road, another assassin leaps out at me from a bush. The Khajiit's white fur, dyed in tiger stripes, ripples in the frozen wind as she slashes at my neck with her daggers; but my attack lands first, slitting her abdomen in two as my sharp blade slices easily through her leather armour.

Leaving the body behind me at the crossroads, I follow the cobbles westwards towards Dawnstar. As I near Fort Dunstad, a trio of spiders crawl across the road, spot me, and decide they're hungry. Proving them wrong, as I jog through the wooden walls around the fallen masonry, I glower at the Imperial soldiers who, instead of helping me against the spiders, are threatening me. Why occupy a fort through which the main road passes, and then threaten the travellers with death for 'interfering with Imperial business'? If this is what they are like when people are just walking past, how do they treat the caravans that deliver their supplies? Do they accept the food then behead them?

Beyond the fort, and after mincing another pair of spiders, I check my map to find out where exactly this Dimhollow Crypt is. I am glad that the cartographers marked practically everything on it, but it makes it a little difficult to find one particular place. I spot the marker about halfway up the track to a shrine to Mehrunes Dagon. Tucking the map back into my bag, I head up a track in the snow towards the mountains. At the end of the track, I find the ruins of the Hall of the Vigilant.

The rafters are still smoking, and outside the corpse of a great black hairless dog lies. The corpses inside are smothered in flies, but the dog is insect-less. On the floor inside, I find a rather interesting book about Arkngthamz, which I tuck into my bag. I think I'll check that place out at some point.

Leaving the ruins behind me – and a blue flower on the step – I follow the tack back toward the road and follow the track where it splits to climb the end of the mountain range. Up a couple of short flights of shallow steps, I find a door into the mountain, facing an excellent view towards the ocean.

Let's see how good I am at using a crossbow then. Pulling it out of my satchel, I head into the first cavern, from which echoes an interesting conversation.

"These Vigilants never know when to give up." Oh dear. "I thought we'd taught them enough of a lesson at their hall." Vampires. And it doesn't sound like Tolan is alive anymore.

"To come in here alone… a fool like all the rest of them." A female vampire answers her male companion.

"He fought well though. Jeron and Bresoth were no match for him."

"Ha! Those two deserved what they got. Their arrogance had become insufferable."

"All this talk is making me thirsty." The male complains. "Perhaps another Vigilant will wander in soon."

"I wish Lokil would hurry it up." The female retorts. "I have half a mind to return to the castle and tell Harkon what a fool he's entrusted this mission to." This could be worse than we thought…

"And I have half a mind to tell Lokil of your disloyalty."

"You wouldn't dare. Now shut up and keep on watch."

From the entrance to the cavern where I am hiding, I can see a great iron gate, closed of course, and in front of it are the corpses of a pair of vampires, another of the dogs – and Tolan. Another of the hounds still lives, and the two vampires are lurking in the shadows nearby. Readying my crossbow, I aim towards the male and press the trigger. The bolt flies true, striking the vampire and killing it in one blow. This of course alerts the female and the dog, both of which dash towards the corpse.

Reloading, I shoot the dog, alarming the female, who raises one of the corpses and starts to search in my direction. I move further into the cavern as I reload, and manage to shoot the female just before she bumps into me. Now the group lie dead, I straighten up and search the cave for a way to open the gate.

In a tower at the other end of the cave, I find an urn, a chest and a chain, which I pull on, opening the gate. I follow the passage through to a large room, at the end of which a set of stairs leads to a small graveyard. As I approach the stairs, a skeleton rises from the ground in front of it, and another pair from the graves, alerting the vampire lurking nearby. The trio of skeletons are easy to deal with, and the vampire doesn't take many more shots to kill either. Isran was right – these crossbows are powerful. I only have about 50 bolts left though, so I'll have to be careful to hit every time.

Opening the next gate, I pass through into a room with sarcophagi embedded in the floor and four around the edge of the room. In one corner is an enchanting table, so I use it to add a flame spell to the crossbow before following the next passage into a large room filled with burial alcoves. Inside, a vampire and her dog are fighting a pair of Draugr she'd awakened, so I let them fight it out. The vampire and the hound prevail, but they still don't live much longer, as they are peppered with bolts as quickly as I can load them. There are three side passages in this room, each blocked by an iron gate. The first contains a chest with a very sturdy lock. It takes a little while, but I manage to get it open, to find the only thing worth taking inside is a sack of coins – the armour is weaker than what I wear, and the battleaxe isn't worth much either.

In the second, a sarcophagus stands at the end, out of which bursts another Draugr, which I shoot dead before it reaches me. In one of the alcoves along the side of the passage is a magic bow, and an axe in another, both made inaccessible by the iron bars encasing the short space down the middle. I wish I had a telekinesis spell, but I have to make do with using Unrelenting Force to try to blast them against the back of the alcoves hard enough to rebound out of them and within range of my arm. It takes a little while, and a lot of effort, but soon both items are in my bag and I'm pulling the chain to open the third passage.

This third is much like the second, only instead of a coffin, there is a pedestal with a pair of potions on it, and in the alcoves along the wall are more potions, which I Shout out.

Following the passage deeper into the crypt, I reach a room with a pool in the middle, submerging the graveyard the room contains. From this pool rise another trio of skeletons, which are weak against the bolts of my crossbow. Their deaths alert a vampire who had been hidden in the murk, and she comes splashing into the pool, raising a skeleton – which provides no protection against another bolt, launched into her sternum with enough force to drive it almost the whole way through.

As the raised skeleton turns to dust behind me, I head up the dirt ramp into a set of passages lined with empty burial alcoves – obviously they're so old even the skeletons have rotted to dust. In short side passages, I find lone vampires, who have already been weakened by the spiders who were the previous occupants of the tunnels. My satchel is starting to get weighed down by all the loot gathered from the corpses of the vampires and the other creatures I encountered on the journey here, so I chow down on some cabbages I'd found as I follow the passage into a sort of balcony above the flooded graveyard. In this area, two of the ugly black dogs lurk, who spot me at about the same time as I spot them. The first runs gaping maw-first into a bolt, and the second is so eager to maul me it runs into the wall beside the doorway, giving me enough time as it recovers to reload my crossbow and drive a bolt into its heart.

In the next room, blocked by a massive iron gate, a vampire battles a giant spider – and wins. I peel some of the glowing mushrooms off of the pedestal the gate lever sits on, then give the lever a tug and shoot the vampire dead. I never thought I'd be grateful to spiders for helping me kill enemies!

Behind the hairy, bloody corpse of the spider is a small door, through which I pass into a small entry area into an absolutely massive cavern. As I reach the opening onto a balcony, taking a scroll on the way, I catch voices coming from the area below.

"I'll never tell you anything, vampire! My oath to Stendarr is stronger than any suffering you can inflict on me."

"I believe you, Vigilant." Comes the response. "And I don't think you even know what you've found here. So go and meet your beloved Stendarr." From where I'm hiding, I can't see anything, but judging from the pained cry I just heard, the poor Vigilant has been killed.

"Are you sure that was wise, Lokil?" Asks a female voice. "He still might have told us something. We haven't gotten anywhere ourselves with –"

"He knew nothing." Replies the first vampire. "He served his purpose by leading us to this place. Now it is up to us to bring Harkon the prize. And we will not return without it. Vingalmo and Orthjolf will make way for me after this."

"Yes of course, Lokil. Do not forget who brought you news of the Vigilants' discovery."

"I never forget who my friends are. Or my enemies."

Peeking over the edge of the balcony, I get a good view of the chamber – and by the Nine, it is huge! In the centre is a large circle created by archways, with a bridge leading to on one side and from on the other. From where I stand, the balcony continues along the wall towards a set of stairs down into the cavern. Following this trail, I find a hidden space near the stairs with a pair of wooden coffins – one of which lies open – and a chest containing a small amount of money and a potion.

I head onto the bridge and shoot dead a thrilled bandit patrolling the edge of the arch circle. The vampires, of course, come running, and the first casualty of the pair is the male, who must be Lokil and the leader of their 'expedition'. The female is a little more intelligent than her boss; instead of making a beeline to the corpse of the thrall like Lokil had, she comes in search of me, attempting to cross the bridge but not succeeding, since the bridge is my hiding spot.

Once I am sure everything in the cavern is dead, I slide the crossbow into its sling on my back and inspect the area encircled by the arches. There are five unlit braziers set into grooves along which they are easily pushed, and in the centre is a button. This must be the thing that the vampire artefact is kept in. I reach out and press the button.

As the button sinks into the pedestal upon which it stands, a massive sharp spike slams up and through the palm of my hand.

Thankfully the spike merely pushes the contents of the inside of my hand out of the way, but as it retreats back into its hidey-hole it leaves a gaping wound. As I cast a healing spell, a heatless purple fire-like glow appears in a circle around the centre, with an arm of the glow spreading along one of the brazier grooves. As an experiment, I push the brazier, and it slides into the next socket and ignites with another purple flame. Ok, I think I've worked it out.

I work my way around the circle, pushing the braziers around until they light, and soon all five are lit. The button in the centre rises into the air and the floor sinks a little, revealing an octagonal pillar. Putting my hand on it, the front drops away – and a woman falls out!

I'm unsure whether I should help as she stumbles to her feet, so instead I ask:

"Are you alright?"

"Uh…" She groans, then blearily focuses on my ash-skinned face. "Where is… who sent you here?"

"Who were you expecting?"

"I was expecting someone… like me, at least." There's something about her eyes….

"Are you a..?"

"Vampire, yes." She seems to have recovered from however long she was in there. She tucks a loose strand of pitch black hair behind her ear and folds her arms.

"Why were you locked away like this?" And for how long? I haven't ever heard any stories of a woman hidden in a pillar before, so either she was hidden away in complete secrecy, which is nigh impossible, or it was such a long time ago that the stories have died.

"That's complicated." She answers. "And I'm not totally sure if I can trust you. But if you want to know the whole story, help me get back to my family's home."

"Where do you need to go?"

"My family used to live on an island to the west of Solitude. I would guess they still do." She starts to step away from the pillar, then does a double take, turning back to me. "By the way, my name is Serana. Good to meet you."

"Lethandhrel." We shake hands, her pale, almost white skin casting a sharp contrast against my dark grey, then set out to explore the rest of the cavern.

No sooner have we set foot upon the solid ground on the other side of the second bridge, than the two stone gargoyles on a raised platform opposite us explode into life, and come screaming towards us. The combined attacks of my burning crossbow bolts and Serana's icicle attacks soon deal with the beasts, and we are free to travel around the edge of the cave wall, where I find a pair of malachite veins. After mining these out, I lead Serana the stairs towards the exit passage and into the next room.

This room is almost pitch dark, what little light there is is cast by a few small braziers scattered around the raised half of the room. As I climb the steps towards a lever in the middle of the room, I spot an alcove with a chest and a spell tome, so after pulling the lever and opening a gate in the next passage I jump down, retrieve the spell book and loot the contents of the chest. Unfortunately, this means Serana is on her own against the group of Draugr and skeletons that rise up when the gate opens. I soon return, however, and deal with the Draugr while she scatters bones all over the room.

Soon, we are jogging along the passage, leaving the scattered remains of the undead behind us – and stumbling into a great room where all the walls are lined with stairs leading down to a large square fire-pit, covered with an iron grid and two scorched victims. From where we stand at the top of one flight, we have a great view of the occupied throne on the other side and the Word Wall in the corner.

From the way the occupant of the throne is sitting, I can tell that it is probably a live Draugr, as the dead ones I've seen have been more slumped, and facing forward in the seat. Aiming my crossbow at the thing, intending not to take the chance that I am wrong, I pull the trigger and send a bolt flying across the room and into the Draugr's chest. Unluckily, this isn't enough to kill it, and it stumbles to its feet while the other, hidden occupants of the room shamble into action and begin searching for us.

Serana and I prove no match for the group of undead, leaving them in various heaps scattered across the room as we make our way towards the Word Wall. When I touch the Wall, the Word seeps out as usual, and embeds its knowledge in my mind. Now I know that if I use the Word 'Gaan', I can drain an opponent's energy, tiring them quicker than ordinary battle.

Opening the doors at the side of the passage, I discover the next passage leads up a set of stairs to an iron grate. Raising it leads to the exit and out into the crisp Skyrim night.

A little way down the slope is a track, no more than many footprints and hoof-prints in the snow, which I follow north-east down to the road just south of Fort Dunstad. Great – not only am I going to have to put up with stupid Imperials who can't tell the difference between walking past and fiddling with, but I'll be with Serana too, which won't help their attitude at all.

Luckily, we pass through fast enough to satisfy the soldiers, and we travel along the road towards Dawnstar. As we fight a trio of hungry wolves, I realise I haven't actually been to Dawnstar before. Following the road, I find that going straight would merely lead us to the docks, so I turn, spot the inn off of a branch in the road to the right, and head inside.

"It's a curse! It has to be!" Is the first thing I hear upon entering. I step closer to the bar to discreetly eavesdrop. "I've got to get out of this town!"

Two women are talking with a Dunmer priest.

"Irgnir, get a hold of yourself." One responds to the other's upset cry. "They're just dreams. Please tell her, Erandur."

"Listen to your friend Fruki." The priest reassures. "They are just dreams, my dear. I assure you that it is quite normal."

"It's the same dream over and over again." Irgnir replies. "You think that's normal? It's evil, I tell you!"

"Erandur, she has a point. You keep telling us no harm will follow these dreams, but they must be an omen."

"Give him a chance to speak." The innkeeper pipes up. "He's trying to help us."

"Everyone, please." The priest raises his voice enough for everyone nearby to hear. "I'm doing what I can to end these nightmares. In the meantime all I ask is you remain strong and put your trust in Lady Mara."

"I… I will." Stutters Irgnir. "Thank you."

The trio scatter as I head up to the bar.

"Need a room?" The innkeeper asks me. "Don't worry – nightmares don't seem to happen for travellers. Name's Thoring – welcome to the Windpeak Inn."

"I'd like to rent a room." I remember no-one ever let me rent one for my companion too.

"Sure thing. It's yours for a day." All the innkeepers respond to my rental with the same phrase. "I'll show you to your room – right this way." He leads me to a room to the right of the bar.

Sure enough, there is only one single bed in the room. At least there is a chair for Serana. If I remember right, vampires can cope with sunlight, they just don't regenerate. I'll have to make sure Serana doesn't take too much damage during the journey tomorrow.


	4. Harkon

Leaving the inn the next morning, I head towards a little boat moored near a house in the north of the town. At that house, a robed woman is arguing with a man standing on the porch in a very old red robe.

"Your ancestors wouldn't want this, Silus!" The woman says. Ah, that's right – the Mythic Dawn Museum is in Dawnstar. This must be it.

"Why should I hide from it? This is my family's legacy!" Silus cries.

"It's the past! Dead oaths on dead lips. Let it stay there!"

"The museum is opening, Madena." The woman sighs and strides past me into town. I'll check out the museum later; right now I have a job to do. I approach the man sat on the edge of the boat.

"I can take you to any port on the coast." Boasts the fellow. "Name's Harlaug."

"I'd like to hire your boat."

"Where are you headed?"

"An island near the border to High Rock." At the mention of this, Harlaug recoils.

"The one with the ruined castle? Don't you know that place is cursed? Even seasoned sailors steer around that place."

"I need to go there anyway." I pull out a large handful of coins.

"I'll take you as far as I can," Harlaug says to the shiny fistful. "but I'm not hanging around and it's gonna cost you extra."

I count out 500 coins, tuck them into a purse and hand it over. "Take me near the castle to the west."

We climb into the boat and settle down for a long ride. I must still be kind of tired, because the gentle rocking of the boat as Harlaug takes it along the coast lulls me to sleep.

When I wake, we're pulling in alongside an old jetty, with half the timbers rotted away and fallen into the icy water. On the other side, another boat sits, with a large puddle of water sitting in the bottom. No sooner have we climbed out of Harlaug's boat than he is pulling on the oars and heading back to Dawnstar.

Looking along the old jetty, I can see in the distance a large island with a huge castle looming atop it. Very impressive – and spooky.

Fishing the oars out of the icy puddle, I slide them into their sockets and sit in the boat. The wood seems solid enough – it only sags a little under my weight. Serana sits opposite me on the other seat, and I pull on the oars, dragging us away from the wooded coastline and the towering cliffs beyond. I also have an excellent view of an old fort, with golden-armoured figures striding along the walls. They can only be Thalmor.

I'm not used to rowing, and being unable to see where we're going. With a thump that nearly throws us from our seats, the boat grates up on the shore of the island. Serana leaps out, and hardly waits for me to disembark before tugging the little boat further up the beach.

With the boat secure, I head up the gargoyle-lined ramp toward the castle gate.

"Hey, so… before we go in there…" Serana says behind me.

"What is it?"

"I wanted to thank you for getting me this far. But after we get in there, I'm going to go my own way for a while. I think… I know your friends would probably want to kill everything in here. I'm hoping you can show some more control than that. Once we're inside, just keep quiet for a bit. Let me take the lead." With that, she passes me and heads up the ramp towards the rising portcullis and the great wooden door. I follow her inside, and – for some reason – am the first person noticed by the High Elven vampire hanging around the doorway into the great hall.

"How dare you trespass here!" he cries, then notices my dark-haired companion. "Wait… Serana? Is that truly you? I cannot believe my eyes!" He heads onto the balcony of the stairs down into the great hall. "My lord!" He calls. "Everyone! Serana has returned!"

"I guess I'm expected." Serana murmurs, then heads down the stairs towards the richly dressed man waiting between the long, bloody banquet tables. This whole set-up is making me incredibly uneasy, but I swallow my fears – I've faced worse – and follow.

"My long lost daughter returns at last. I trust you have my Elder Scroll?"

I knew I'd seen the case she had on her back somewhere before! I'd been so distracted by my recent re-discoveries that I'd completely forgotten about the one hidden deep in my bag.

"After all these years that's the first thing you ask me?" Serana replies. "Yes, I have the Scroll."

"Of course I'm delighted to see you, my daughter." Her father cries. Even for a vampire, there is something not quite right with this man. "Must I really say the words aloud? Ah, if only your traitor mother were here – I would let her watch this reunion before putting her head on a spike." He turns to me, his golden eyes boring into my solitary red one. I feel like he can see everything that I am through it. "Now tell me, who is this stranger you have brought into our hall?"

"This is my saviour; the one who freed me." Serana says.

"For my daughter's safe return, you have my gratitude." He says to me. "Tell me, what is your name?"

"Lethandhrel." I find myself responding before I can stop myself. This one is far more dangerous than any of the others I've ever encountered. "Who are you?"

"I am Harkon, lord of this court. By now, my daughter will have told you what we are."

"You are vampires." I fake confidence. I don't think I have ever been so un-nerved since… since Helgen!

"Not just vampires." Harkon says proudly. "We are among the oldest and most powerful vampires in Skyrim. For centuries we lived here, far from the cares of the world. All that ended when my wife betrayed me and stole away that which I valued most." Somehow, I don't think he refers to his daughter.

"What happens now?"

"You have done me a great service, and now you must be rewarded. There is but one gift I can give that is equal in value to the Elder Scroll and my daughter. I offer you my blood – take it and you will walk as a lion among sheep. Men will tremble at your approach and you will never fear death again."

This… is quite tempting – to my old self. Once upon a time I would have leapt on his offer; the more power for me, the better. But no more. That is no longer who I am!

"And if I refuse your gift?"

"Then you will be prey, like all mortals. I will spare your life this once, but you will be banished from this hall. Perhaps you still need convincing? Behold the power!" With a painful-sounding crunch, he explodes into a tall, blue-grey skinned creature, with tattered wings and a permanent angry grimace. The light of the candles on the table and the fires of the braziers glints off of the golden chest-plate and the gems on the band in his grey hair.

"This is the power that I offer!" Harkon cries, while somehow not moving his lips. "Now make your choice."

"I don't want to become a vampire. I refuse your gift."

"So be it! You are prey, like all mortals. I banish you!" He casts a blue spell at me, and everything goes black.

When it clears, I find I am standing a few meters up the shore from the boat. Without even looking back, despite my worries about Serana – who seems a whole lot more human than her father – I push the boat into the waves and climb in.

Reaching the mainland, I pause after securing the boat to take in my surroundings. I see no way of getting up the cliff, so I set off east-south-eastwards past the fort, hoping I can find a road or even just a little track. A little way into the trees beyond the fort, I am attacked by a pair of wolves, who barely last seconds against my crossbow, which I will admit was a silly choice of weapon for close combat, but it was the first weapon I laid my hands on.

As I wander through the snowy pine trees, I contemplate all the vampire lore I'd heard and read over the years – namely 'Immortal Blood', and remember stories of the Volkihar clan of Skyrim. They can only be the vampires I'd just encountered, so I get out my map and mark the castle I'd just had the pleasure of visiting as Castle Volkihar. Tucking the map into my bag, I stop as an icicle blasts into the ground mere inches from my feet. Looking up, I spot a – I suppose rugged would be a nice way of putting it – woman standing in the shadow of a toppled tower launching another icicle my way. Leaping to my right, I pull out my crossbow again and launch a bolt in her direction, hitting her in the chest and killing her in one blow.

Searching through the toppled ruins, marked by an ancient sign as Widow's Watch, I find a single chest buried under the fallen furniture of the room, but all it contains is a handful of gold and a potion, so it almost wasn't worth the effort of picking the lock. Sliding out of the door, I return to the icy woods and continue my journey eastwards, eventually finding a road twisting down from the cliffs. I follow it, still travelling eastwards, and continue as it curves south then west, and I am soon in a place I recognise. The road continues along over the arched wall covering the opening of what must be an underground harbour or something. Instead, I turn into a little alcove and pass through a wooden door, up a spiral staircase and into the city of Solitude through a gate at the bottom of the famous windmill.

Closing the gate behind me, I hear a ruckus at the main gate, and following the noise, I discover that a vampire is using the darkness of the recently fallen night to attack the city. One old warrior is already crouching injured on the road, and another dashes past me. There are no guards to be seen, so I kill the solitary vampire then head into the inn.

After renting a room, I pass the bard, who is singing a new song I haven't heard before, and head up the stairs into my room. It's late, so I unbuckle the more solid pieces of armour I wear and curl up on the bed.


	5. More travels

No sooner have I left the city the next morning than I discover two of the black hounds the vampires use are trying their best to rip the throats out of the gate guards and a Khajiit caravan that has just finished packing up. Drawing my crossbow, it only takes two shots to kill both of the already weakened beasts. Continuing down the road, I don't meet anything or anyone else until I pass through the quiet Dragon Bridge. It's still early, so only the guards are out and about and barely even glance my way as I jog past.

After crossing both the bridges out of the little hamlet, I turn east along the road towards Morthal and Dawnstar. I've barely passed the treeline when an angry mudcrab scuttles up the slope from the marshes and snaps at me with its pincers. Stupid creature didn't stand even the slightest chance.

I turn down the road into Morthal to visit the Thaumaturgist's Hut to sell off all the excess potions and ingredients that are merely weighing me down, then return to the road and continue my journey. A little beyond the turn-off to Morthal, a pair of spiders scuttle away from their recent catch to try to add me as a side-dish; instead they end up decorating my blade with their entrails. I wipe my sword on the elk they'd started wrapping in spider silk then follow the cobbles – to be attacked by a rogue skeleton. Sigh.

Leaving the scattered bones behind my steel-clad back, I pass a man walking a painted cow along the road and cut my way through a trio of wolves before turning south near Dawnstar. This time, instead of running through the stupid squadron of Imperial soldiers, I run around Fort Dunstad and re-join the road on the other side. Past the snowline, another pair of wolves leaps out at me, and are quickly left for buzzard-food.

It seems Loreius still hasn't got around to fixing the jester's cart, as the broken cart is still standing on the side of the road. I wonder if he ever will.

At the crossroads at the Meadery, I detour to Riverwood to visit the Trader. I might take the south road this time, for a change of scenery.

As I leave the shop though, a few pounds lighter and a large purse richer, I change my mind and head off back to the crossroads. Taking the south road means passing through what's left of Helgen, and I'm not ready to go back there yet.

I use the shortcut over the arm of the great mountain and reach the river near Ivarstead with the sun only halfway back down to the horizon in the west. Across the rapids, I spot a troll that has moved into the little cave with the dead Stormcloaks in, so I sneak across the river and try to stay hidden as I approach the ugly beast – to no avail.

The troll spins around with an angry roar, and swipes at me with its enormous arms. Dodging, I lash out with my sword and hack at the thick, matted fur until the monster is dead. Gazing around the cave, I notice that the troll's scratching around has unveiled more orichalcum in the vein at the back, so I mine it out then head up to the village.

Not far into the trees on the other side, a large pack of wolves are hanging around, a pair of them chasing a deer that stumbled into their group – and the other three targeting me instead. It doesn't take much effort to kill them, but in the time it took, the other two had finished off the deer, and so now they attempt to get at me too, and fail as badly as their pack-mates.

Turning east at the junction, I pass a wandering bard and, a little further on, a man who calls out about joining the Stormcloaks as I run past. I wave a hand in acknowledgement, then return my attention to the road – just in time, as a rather drunk Dunmer leaps out of the nearby bushes and casts a flame spell at me before attempting to smash my head in with his elven-made mace.

"Yol!" Bathing him in fire in return, I swing my Dwemer blade towards his body, and manage to open a gash in his armour. I use the tear in the iron to my advantage, and as the drunkard charges towards me, I hold my sword in both hands, pointed at the gap, and the poor idiot drives himself onto my sword.

I clean my blade on the grass, then take the Dark Elf's coinpurse, adding the contents to my own and tucking the empty little sack into my bag. As I straighten, a thief ignores the fact I'm standing next to a corpse and attempts to rob me.

"All right, hand over your valuables, or I'll gut you like a fish!" She cries.

I'm feeling rather confident, and also quite pissed off by now. "I'd rather die!"

"Then I guess that's your last request, fool!" Did this woman not see my fight against her drunken brethren? Oh well, someone to keep him company in death, I suppose.

I leave both the corpses behind me and continue along the road and through the back gate into Riften. The walls block out the last light of the setting sun, and the city is as quiet as it is dark. Renting a room in the Bee and Barb, I trot up the stairs, relieve my body of the heavier pieces of armour, and settle down on the thick straw mattress.


	6. Hide and Seek

The next morning, I leave the city by the back gate and follow my usual route behind the keep to get to the back road. The sun finishes rising as I enter the canyon and follow the track to the Fort. Near the first tower, I find they are building a wooden rampart for extra protection. A little further on, however, I realise they started a little bit too late, as a trio of vampires are attacking the fort.

I draw my bow to join in, and somehow this draws attention to me, and the three bloodsuckers turn to attack me instead. Since none of the Dawnguard are behind them, I use my Fire Breath on them and use their stumble as a chance to stick them with a couple of arrows. As the Dawnguard and I are fighting the vampires, I notice that there is a new recruit among them, a sturdy Nord woman who seems to be holding her own against the female vampire who is now giving her all of its attention. Soon, all three vampires are lying dead at our feet and are being buried in the snow which began falling as we fought.

After looting the corpses, I approach Isran, who is still surrounded by the icy aura he had cast as he fought.

"Look at this." He complains. "I should have known it was only a matter of time before they found us. It's the price we pay for openly recruiting. We'll have to step up our defences. I don't suppose you have some good news for me?"

"Not exactly." I reply, hesitantly.

"Damn. Well, what do you know?"

"The vampires were looking for a woman trapped in Dimhollow."

"A woman? Trapped in there? That doesn't make any sense. Who is she? More importantly, where is she?"

"She wanted to go home, so I took her to her castle." I explain. I don't think he'd appreciate the knowledge that I'd helped a vampire, even if she seemed more of a good person than some humans I've met.

"I'm waiting to hear what any of this means."

"They also have an Elder Scroll."

"They what?" Isran cries. "And you didn't stop them? You didn't secure the scroll?"

"I'm lucky I made it out alive!" I respond. If he had seen how many vampires were in that castle, would he have expected to survive an attack?

"Right. So they have this woman, and an Elder Scroll. By the Divines, this couldn't get much worse. This is more than you and I can handle."

"We have to do something."

"Well, of course we do! I'm old, not stupid. We're just going to need some help. If they're bold enough to attack us here, then this may be bigger than I thought. I have good men here, but… There are people I've met and worked with over the years. We need their skills, their talents, if we're going to survive this. If you can find them, we might have a chance."

"Where can I find these people we need?"

"Right to the point, aren't you? I like that. Not like those fools in the order. We should keep it small; too many people and we'll draw unwanted attention to ourselves. I think we'll want Sorine Jurard. Breton girl, whip-smart and good with tinkering. Fascination with the Dwemer; weapons in particular. Last I knew she was out in the Reach, convinced she was about to find the biggest Dwemer ruins yet."

"She'll help us?" I ask.

"Might need a little convincing, but she should. You'll also want to find Gunmar. Big brute of a Nord, hates vampires almost as much as I do. Got it into his head years back that his experience with animals would help. Trolls in particular, from what I hear. Last I knew he was out scouring Skyrim for more beasts to tame. Bring the two of them back here and we can get started on coming up with a plan." With that, Isran heads up the stairs and into the Fort.

I head back down the track and out the crack in the cliffs onto the road. I haven't got much further towards Riften when a Dunmer thief leaps out at me, pronouncing the usual threats in his faint Morrowind accents. His attempt to rob me succeeds as well as his comrades' did, and I head back into Riften the way I left, heading into the market in the centre of the city to sell what little loot I had acquired since Riverwood.

Leaving the city once I've finished, I head down the road north – and almost immediately encounter the road guards fighting a wolf and a spider, who have teamed up against them. We make short work of the beasts, and I continue down the road, down the hill and through the now-quiet Fort Greenwall before reaching Shor's Stone. All is quiet here, too, so I jog on through and down the road, taking the east road when I reach the crossroads.

There is almost literally nothing out here; just the occasional fox, rabbit or goat running as fast as they can out of my path into the bushes that sparsely decorate the roadside. To my left is the cliff-face, and on my right a sheer drop to the volcanic hot springs of Eastmarch below. Where the road cuts into a rocky spur, an Orc stands, slightly swaying. I can practically smell the skooma on him, so I skirt around him and continue on.

Soon, I am trotting through the forested eastern end of the Rift, past a pair of what must be Alik'r warriors confronting some poor woman. I don't stop, however – I've encountered this pair before, and they at least admit when they've made a mistake. Besides, their leader admitted to me that they know that the woman they are searching for is in Whiterun.

Passing a nobleman on a horse and his Imperial guard, I start following the signs for Ivarstead – maybe someone there has heard or seen this Gunmar person. As I jog along the road, I spot a Nord crouching at the side of the road – and he seems to match Isran's vague description of a 'big brute of a Nord'.

"You there!" He cries out to me in an accent I've never heard before. Definitely something Nordic though. "Hold fast! I've tracked this damn bear for two weeks; I'll not let it have any more victims!"

I take a shot in the dark; if he doesn't know Isran, he won't know what I'm talking about. "Isran needs your help."

"Isran? Needing someone else's help?" Yep. This person is Gunmar alright. "Never thought I'd hear that. I'm afraid he's a few years too late. I've moved on. I have more important business to attend to. Besides, he can handle anything alone! He assured me so himself. What could he possibly need my help with?"

"We're up against vampires." I say simply.

"Vampires? That… well, that might change things. Tell me more about what's going on."

"We're not sure, but they have an Elder Scroll."

"By the Eight…" Never thought I'd hear that out of a Nord. "All right, look. I'll consider it, but I can't just leave this bear to prey on more innocent people. Once it's dealt with, then perhaps I'll see what Isran expects of me."

Right then. I think I'll help this burly red-head deal with this bear. I follow Gunmar into the trees and towards a cave surrounded by trees, most of them containing a beehive. A bear stands guard outside, and Gunmar charges in, so I draw my warhammer out of my bag and 'set to'. Three whacks from me, and several slices of Gunmar's sword, and the bear lies dead.

Inside the cave are three more bears, one a lighter shade of brown and a whole lot uglier. The two darker bears are relatively easy to deal with, but the lighter one must be rabid or something, because it's having a hard time seeing us through the foam thickly lining its mouth. I'm hammering away at the creature when suddenly, with a great roar, Gunmar brings his sword slamming down into the bear's skull, putting it out of everyone's misery, including its own.

"Don't know how well I'd have managed by myself." Gunmar comments. "You have my thanks. You've helped me, so I suppose the least I can do is find out what Isran wants. He's still at that fort near Stendarr's Beacon, I assume?"

"Yes; he said to meet him at Fort Dawnguard."

"Of course he did. He's been working on that place for years now. Never lets anyone in. His own little fortress. Well, I guess I'll get to see what he's been up to all this time. I'll meet you there." Gunmar nods to me, then jogs out of the cave.

I pull out a couple of teeth, then I head into the centre of the cave, where a chest lies decorated with the blood of the nearby body of an unfortunate traveller. Inside is a small bag of coins, a pair of potions and a helmet I don't need. Ignoring the helmet, I take the rest and head back outside to take my chances at harvesting honeycomb, and find that luckily the hives had been abandoned a short time ago – probably when the bears moved in.

Heading down the rest of the road and into Ivarstead, I jog straight through and down the hill, crossing the river and up the track towards my little shortcut over the mountain arm. Running along the road beside the river, there is nothing to interrupt my appreciation of the afternoon sunlight shining off of the water. Heading into Whiterun, I stop at Belethor's to sell my loot. I consider retrieving Lydia from Dragonsreach, but I am actually quite enjoying travelling alone; being able to run as fast as I want and not having my presence given away by a blithe comment is rather refreshing.

Following the road east out beyond the stable, I trot past the Western Watchtower with its tiny garrison and slip past the crossroad fort. A little way along the road, a giant is guiding a painted cow towards the open tundra – the farmer is nowhere to be seen. Oh dear.

Not much further on, a trio of Imperials are wandering along, and a sabre cat behind them is rushing after an elk. Unfortunately, the massive feline changes its mind upon seeing me and charges at me – and straight onto my sword, the poor indecisive beast. Taking a tooth that had been knocked loose for my trouble, I continue along the road, finding it hard to see. I'm puzzling over why – maybe I got blood in my eye or something – when I realise it's because night has fallen and I hadn't even noticed. I was so focussed on my enemy I didn't even realise the sun was setting!

As I turn the corner past the pass into the Reach, a pair of wolves use the darkness to try to attack me, but I spot them in time and turn them into rugs. The rest of the trip to Rorikstead is quiet, and ducking into the Frostfruit Inn, I realise just how cold it had gotten too. Renting the room, I am glad to finally get some sleep.


	7. Dwarves and Dragons

Following the road north the next day, I haven't gone far before a wolf tries to have me for breakfast. Taking out my warhammer, I swing it just in time to smash the wolf's face in. Ouch.

As I reach the crossroad down the hill, I am ambushed by four bandits. Two of them hang back, shooting at me with bows (and missing most of the time) while the other two rush screaming at me, war axes drawn. Those two are dealt with easily, but as I finish off the first archer, a dragon crashes onto the road and blasts ice at the other, sending his frozen body tumbling down the hill.

"Joor Zah Frul!" I Shout to prevent the dragon taking off again, and I swap my warhammer with Dragonbane, running as fast as I can to close the distance between me and the great beast. Ducking under it as it lunges at me, trying to bite my head off, I swing upwards and open a gash in its throat. Unluckily, it's not deep enough to do any real damage, and the dragon rears back to cover me with ice. Shouting again causes it to flinch, interrupting its Shout, and I lash out again, leaping onto its head to stab it repeatedly in the face until it slams to the ground dead.

As I absorb the dragon's soul, I ponder where to go first to look for this Sorine Jurard. Letting my intuition lead me, I head off down the westward road. A little way down, the road cuts through a cliff, past a fort built into the rock – which has been occupied by the Forsworn, the wild folk of the Reach I'd heard about somewhere. I can't be asked to clear out the fort now, so I kill the woman who attacked me as I passed the fort and head down a track heading northwards and away from the fort.

The track doesn't go far however; a short way away from the road it peters out into the hardy mountain grass. I'm running in a random direction now, in a north-western direction. Mining an iron vein I come across, I let my mind wander. Once I finish cutting out the visible iron from the stone, I wade across the river and walk along the bank until I find a track leading through the hills.

I haven't travelled that far along the track when I encounter a hagraven attacking a spriggan, so I help the forest guardian defeat the creature, cutting it down and plucking a couple of feathers. Something hits me, and I look up to find the spriggan is now attacking me, the ungrateful thing! I use my Fire Breath Shout on it, and it bursts into flames; when it dies I take a small sample of what remains and head on along the track.

The track ends when it reaches another branch of the river, so I wade across that, pass a satchel lying next to the rushing water – wonder why it's there? – and find the person I'm looking for. I can't think of anyone else who would be hanging around a small Dwemer ruin in the middle of nowhere.

"You haven't seen a sack of Dwarven gyros, have you?" She asks when I approach. "I'd swear I left it right here. Do you think mudcrabs might've taken it? I saw one the other day… wouldn't be surprised if it followed me here. Just look around will you?"

"Isran asked me to find you." I say instead.

"Isran? Wants me? No, you must be mistaken. He made it exceedingly clear the last time we spoke that he had no interest in my help." What is it with Isran and rejecting help he then needs later on? "I find it hard to believe he's changed his mind. He said some very hurtful things to me before I left. Anyway, I'm quite happy in my current pursuits, so if you'll excuse me…" She starts turning away.

"Vampires threaten all of Skyrim. We need your help."

Sorine pauses, then turns back to me. "Vampires? Really? Oh, and I suppose now he remembers that I proposed no less than three scenarios that involved vampires overrunning the population. Well; what are they up to?"

"They have an Elder Scroll."

"I… well, that's actually something I never would've anticipated. Interesting… I'm not sure what they would do with one, but in this case Isran is probably correct in thinking it isn't good. All right, if nothing else, I suppose it wouldn't hurt to learn more about what's going on so I can better defend myself. But I'm not just going to abandon what I've been working on here; it's too useful. I need at least one intact Dwarven gyro, so either I need to find the satchel the mudcrabs stole, or I need another gyro from someplace. You wouldn't happen to have one, would you?"

"I don't have any gyros on me." I say, thinking about the bag near the water.

"Well, then I'm very sorry, but I just walk away from this project yet."

I return to the river and rummage through the satchel, retrieving seven gyros. If she only needs one, why did she have so many? I return to the speculating woman.

"Just one gyro." She murmurs. "One, and I can get back to work. Where are they?"

"Isran and I still need your help." I remind her, in case she's already forgotten.

"I understand that." She sighs, returning her attention to me. "But I really can't leave here without one useable piece of Dwarven equipment. A single gyro would be enough, I think. Believe me, this is useful stuff."

"Here. I've got a Dwarven gyro. Take it." I hand her one of the gyros. If she only needs one, I can sell the rest.

"Thank you! It's not much, but this will help a great deal with some things I've been researching. Now where is it Isran expects me to go?"

"We're meeting at Fort Dawnguard."

"Ah – been working more on his secret hideout, has he? It'll be interesting to see how much progress he's made. I'll finish up here and head in that direction as soon as I can. See you there."

Leaving Sorine with her gyro, I head east and am soon attacked by another ice breathing dragon. Using Dragonrend sends it over to a large area of ground a short distance ahead. Sprinting to catch up, I draw Dragonbane and reach the monster just as Dragonrend wears off. I use it again, stopping it from taking off or Shouting at me, I attack, slashing and hacking as fast as I can, dodging its own attacks as best I can. This one is tougher than the last one – I have to cast a healing spell several times during the fight. I emerge the victor, with barely any energy left to even step back when the body burns.

Absorbing the soul gives me enough time to recover my energy, and the soul also helps, and so I am soon heading eastwards again, crossing the river near an abandoned camp and following the road south. After turning a sabre cat into a rustic living-room decoration, I dash through the abandoned bandit camp near the bridge, using my Fire Breath on the lone bandit who had moved in.

Passing through Rorikstead, I nod to the guards patrolling the road and, soon after leaving the village, am attacked by a wolf. I barely have time to draw my sword when a pair of Vigilants, now of course homeless, step in and deal with the unfortunate canine for me.

"Stendarr have mercy upon you, for the Vigilants have none to spare." One of them says, and I do a double take – both of the Vigilants look exactly the same! Twins, or some strange coincidence?

Further down the road, I pass another pair of Alik'r warriors harassing a Redguard woman. Ignoring them, I pass the crossroad fort, and reaching Whiterun, I take the road up into the city and visit Belethor to sell my loot.

Leaving the city, I pass a Khajiit caravan as they set up outside the city walls, and have a quiet journey across the bridges and along the goat track to Ivarstead. The Throat of the World already blocks out the sun, casting the little logging town into darkness, and I am rather tired now, so I rent a room at the inn and am soon fast asleep.


	8. A Vampire's Tale

Leaving the inn and turning south to follow the road, the only sounds I can hear are my footsteps and the singing of the birds in the trees. A refreshing breeze tickles across my face and sends scattered leaves dancing across the road. I wonder as I meet nothing as I turn east at the crossroads near the pass through to Helgen – usually I have been attacked by at least a pack's worth of wolves by now. I'm not complaining, however; I love a peaceful journey. I keep meaning to return to Helgen at some point to pay my respects. Maybe I should talk to someone about getting the rebuilding effort started – I don't want the small town to disappear from the map, considering that Helgen is the place where it all began.

As the road passes near to the river – named as the Treva on my map – I pass a dark skinned Nord. I nod my greetings as I approach.

"I'm on my way to Windhelm to join up with the Stormcloaks." He says. "Ulfric has the right of it."

"Good luck with that!" I say as I continue past. He waves back and continues on his way.

A little further on, I pass the wandering bard I've seen in various spots around Skyrim. I've always wondered what it would be like to be a bard; at least I'd have plenty of material to write an epic! I don't think I would make a good bard though – I was never very good at music.

The only warning that the bear gives me is a roar, before it leaps out of the bushes next to the road to take a swipe at me with its huge claws. I leap back, drawing my sword, and the enraged beast misses me by an inch, at most. As it rears back, preparing to attack again, I close the distance and slice open its chest before stabbing it in the heart through the wound.

After wiping my blade clean on the bear's matted fur, I leave it at the roadside and continue down the road as it twists sharply into the woods. As it curves gently back to the east, I meet an Orc in rags.

"Greetings, sister." He says as I near. "You look weary. I have something to help you relax, if you're interested."

"What are you talking about?" I ask.

"The finest Skooma, the sweetest moon sugar. At a fair price, of course."

"No, thanks." Definitely not; especially after what it did to Uncle Lexus. After three years on the drug, he was unrecognisable. And violent.

"Each has their own way." The Orc turns away, and I continue past him.

As the road meets Lake Honrich, an assassin leaps growling out of a bush, her blades flashing in the morning sun peeking through the canopy. I use my Fire Breath on her, burning her and knocking her back; this gives me time to draw my blade and fight back. I don't bother trying to block her attacks – I have no shield, instead using my left hand to keep a healing spell prepared, and besides, with a long-sword in one hand and a dagger in her other, I could either fight or block, not both. Instead, I go all-in, slashing with my sword when gaps open in her duel-wielded blades; eventually I defeat her, and on her corpse I find the usual collection of items that all the other assassins had.

Gramps would never have approved of all this – he always believed that if anyone wanted you dead, they should use the Morag Tong to get it done. He hated the 'other lot', calling them traitors and defectors. But I suppose the black chitin uniform of the Morag Tong would rather stick out in Skyrim, as opposed to the black and red leather worn by my attackers.

Entering Riften, I head straight to the Dark Elf's stall to sell what little loot I'd collected, then duck back out of the gate and jog around behind the Keep to get to the road on the other side. I wonder why they boarded up the gate on this side? Just after crossing the bridge over the brook, a Khajiit mage surprises me with a fireball. Fighting back, I wonder just what is keeping this cat going? He barely pauses in his casting, only stopping when he lies dead at my feet. Removing his helmet, I find out why – the crazed eyes and the frothy spit dripping from his lips point directly at Rabies. Poor thing – of all the diseases this cat could have caught, it had to be the rarest of them all.

I've barely straightened up when a fellow runs up to me and shoves a bow into my hands.

"Take this and hold onto it. I'll be back for it later. I'll pay you good – don't lose it!" He says, looking around worriedly.

"Umm…"

"No time to talk – snitch or double-cross me and I'll kill you, I mean it!" He hurries back up the road and ducks under the bridge.

I'm still standing there, confused as to what had just happened, when another running man, wearing the kit common to hunters, comes dashing up to me.

"Did you see someone run past just now?" He asks me.

"I presume this Orcish bow belongs to you?" I proffer the bow, and he takes it gratefully.

"Yes! How'd you get this? Never mind – here. It's not much, but it's something. I'm going to track down that thief, and murder him!" He rushes away from me, spots the thief cowering beneath the bridge, and shoots the man with his newly re-acquired bow, killing him in one shot.

I continue the short distance down the road and through the crack in the cliff into the canyon. Following the track, I pass through the finished defences, comprising of a few spiked fences and a gate on the wooden wall, and continue up the path towards the fortress. They've planted a few crops since I was here last too – they must have been working non-stop!

As I enter the great building, the entrances to the rest of the fort are closed off by gates rising out of the thresholds. In the centre of the hall stand Gunmar and Sorine – they must have travelled through the night to get here so quickly.

"All right Isran." Gunmar calls up to the dark figure standing on the balcony above. "You've got us all here. Now what do you want?"

"Hold it right there." Isran shouts back, and pulls on a cord dangling next to him. Far above, a lens set on a pair of metal arms holding it in the centre of the hole in the roof tilts, focussing the sunlight onto the centre of the hall and the pair of stunned travellers.

"What are you doing?" Asks Sorine, squinting through the blinding light in an attempt to glare at Isran.

"Making sure you're not vampires. Can't be too careful." He gruffly explains, before tugging on the cord again and resetting the lens back into its original position. Tying the cord onto the railing before him to hold it in place, he continues. "So, welcome to Fort Dawnguard. I'm sure you've heard a bit of what we're up against. Powerful vampires, unlike anything we've seen before. And they have an Elder Scroll. If anyone is going to stand in their way, it's going to be us."

"This is all well and good, but do we actually know anything about what they're doing? What do we do now?" Sorine puts her fists on her hips, and Gunmar nods in agreement with her question.

"We'll get to that. For now, get acquainted with the space. Sorine, you'll find room to start tinkering on that crossbow design you've been working on. Gunmar, there's an area large enough for you to pen up some trolls; get them armoured up and ready for use. In the meantime," Isran starts glaring at me. "we're going to get to the bottom of why a vampire showed up here looking for you. Let's go have a little chat with it, shall we?"

I have a feeling I know who he's talking about. After the gates return to their slots in the floor, I find and climb the spiral staircase up to the second floor and follow Isran into a small, bloody torture room, inside which stands – of course – Serana.

"So, let's hear it." Isran grumps, folding his arms and watching the vampire like a hawk would a dying rabbit.

Serana, instead, ignores him and takes a step closer to me. "You probably weren't expecting to see me again." She says, a small smile gracing her beautiful face.

"What are you doing here?" I ask her.

"I'd rather not be here either, but I needed to talk to you. It's important, so please just listen before your friend here loses his patience. It's… well, it's about me. And the Elder Scroll that was buried with me."

"What about you?"

"The reason I was down there… and why I had the Elder Scroll. It all comes back to my father. I'm guessing you figured this part out already, but my father's not exactly a good person; even by vampire standards. He wasn't always like that though. There was a… a turn. He stumbled on this obscure prophecy and just kind of lost himself in it."

"What sort of prophecy?" By my own experience, prophecy never leads to anything good for anyone, really.

"It's pointless and vague, like all prophecies. The part he latched onto said that vampires would no longer need to fear the sun. That's what he's after. He wants to control the sun; have vampires control the world. Anyway, my mother and I didn't feel like inviting a war with all of Tamriel, so we tried to stop him. That's why I was sealed away with the Scroll."

"What's all this have to do with the Dawnguard?" No sooner have I finished my question than I realise it was a stupid one.

"I'm sorry; I had heard there were vampire hunters here." Serana responds sarcastically. "I thought they might want to know about a vampire plot to enslave the rest of the world. Was I wrong?"

"No, you're right. We just have to convince the others you're on our side." I say soothingly.

"Well, let's move then. I'm nothing if not persuasive."

I turn to Isran.

"Well, you've heard what it has to say." He says. "Now tell me, is there any reason I shouldn't kill this bloodsucking fiend right now?"

"Because we're going to need _her_ help." I reply, hoping he'll catch the emphasis.

"Why, because of that story about the prophecy? About some vampire trying to put the sun out? Do you actually believe any of that?"

"Why else would she risk her life to come here?"

"Who knows? Maybe it has a death wish. Maybe it's just insane; I don't really care. It can stay for now, but if it so much as lays a finger on anyone here, I'll hold you responsible. Got it?" Isran turns to Serana. "You hear me? Don't feel like a guest, because you're not. You're a resource; you're an asset. In the meantime, don't make me regret my sudden outburst of tolerance and generosity, because if you do, your friend here is going to pay for it."

"Thank you for your kindness. I'll remember it the next time I'm feeling hungry." Serana jabs back, then turns back to me. "So, in case you didn't notice the giant thing I have on my back, I have the Elder Scroll with me. Whatever it says, it will have something that can help us stop my father. But of course, neither of us can read it."

"Who can?" I'm guessing the time at the top of the Monahven was just a fluke – or made easier by its link with its past self through the time rip.

"Well, the Moth Priests are the only ones I've heard of who can do it. They spend years preparing before they start reading though. Not that it helps us anyway, because they're all half a continent away in Cyrodiil."

Great. Does that mean we have to go all the way to the Imperial City? I remember the last time I made that journey. It was awful – carefully travelling through the thick forests during the dark summer nights to avoid the Imperial Guards' patrols, having difficulty sleeping in cramped hollows during the heat of the day. But then, the reason for my journey wasn't exactly legal…

"Some Imperial scholar arrived in Skyrim a few days ago." Isran's gruff voice pulls me back to the present. "I was staking out the road when I saw him pass by. Maybe that's your Moth Priest."

"Do you know where he's staying now?" Serana asks.

"No, and I'm not going to waste men looking. We're fighting a war against your kind, and I intend to win it. You want to find him, try talking to anyone who'd meet a traveller – innkeepers and carriage drivers in the big cities, maybe. But you're on your own."

"Any idea how we're going to find a Moth Priest? Skyrim's a pretty big place." Serana says to me, arching a carefully sculpted eyebrow. She obviously took the time to pretty herself up a bit before travelling south.

"Do you have any ideas?" I respond.

"Well, back before I… you know. The College of Winterhold was the first place I'd think to go for any kind of magic or historical thing. The wizards know about all kinds of things that people probably shouldn't know about. Actually, now that I think of it… I'm going to come along with you. I've been really wanting to get out and explore a bit."

Nodding my assent, I lead Serana back downstairs and out into the noon sun. She dons a dark hood, then continues down the track behind me.

We haven't travelled far when we interrupt a pair of scouting vampires sneaking up towards the fort. With Serana's help, the pair are soon defeated and lying in the deep grass beside the track. We're attacked by another trio of vampires as we leave the canyon, and they last about as long as the scouts.

Continuing along the road, followed by a groaning zombie raised by Serana during our recent scuffle, we pause in our travels to slay a roaming spider, then, as the zombie crumbles to ash behind us, dash behind the keep and enter Riften, heading straight into the Bee and Barb in the centre of town.

"If you've got the coin you're welcome here." Keerava gives us her usual greeting without looking up from wiping the bar. "Otherwise, hit the road."

"Heard anything about a Moth Priest passing through?" I ask her. She glances at me with her golden eyes, then continues with her task.

"Nah. I don't think so." She replies. I shrug at Serana, then leave the city to talk to the carriage driver – Sigaar, I think I heard the stable hand call him once.

"I can take you to any of the Hold capitals." He boasts.

"Have you seen a Moth Priest?"

"That's one of them Imperial scholars, right? Old man with a grey robe?"

"That's right. You've seen him?" Serana questions him.

"Might be that I have, but I can't say for sure." Sigaar says in a tone that obviously asks for money. "I got enough troubles on my mind just trying to scrape by out here."

"Maybe this will put your mind at ease." I press a purse of gold into his hand that had so conveniently fallen open on his lap.

"Ah, yes, I remember your Moth Priest now." He pockets the gold with an avaricious grin. "He wanted me to take him out to Dragon Bridge, but I told him that ain't one of my stops."

Thanking the driver, I head off down the road northwards. I could've taken his carriage to Solitude then travelled to Dragon Bridge from there, but I've had bad experiences with carriages in the past, so I daren't risk it.

Passing through a very quiet Fort Greenwall, and an almost-as-quiet Shor's Stone, we don't meet anyone until we're traveling through the pine forests that line the western end of Eastmarch. Just as we cross a bridge, a thief leaps out of the shadows of the trees and tries to rob us, but Serana is having none of it and kills him before he can even utter a word. Wow – she must have had a few encounters of her own on the journey to the fort.

Passing a pair of Vigilants, who watch us pass suspiciously, and a travelling mercenary, we're nearing the area where the road climbs the cliffs near Valtheim when night falls, revealing a clear starry sky, decorated to the north with the dancing lights of the Aurora Tamrealis. Absolutely beautiful.

Valtheim is still silent, apart of course from the roar of the waterfall nearby, and when we reach Whiterun I lead Serana inside and up the road to the Bannered Mare, where I rent the room.

"I hope you don't mind?" I ask, and Serana merely shakes her head and settles into a chair on the balcony, watching the minstrel below. I know that daylight isn't exactly healthy for a vampire, but my night vision still isn't as good as it should be, what with only having one eye and all. Oh well, I hope vampires don't suffer from lack of sleep the same way us mortals do…


	9. Trapped in the Holdout

The sun has not yet risen when we leave the inn. The stars are peeking through the small gaps in the clouds that coat the sky, threatening the possibility of rain. Sheathing my sword, I pull out my warhammer from my bag and tuck it into the band that holds my bow on my back. The night-time insects are still chirping, and gods are they loud! I'm twice as alert as usual because of them – they're drowning out most of the other natural noises, and so I might not notice an enemy until they are right on top of me.

Passing the fort at the crossroads – I have no idea why but I feel like I must avoid that place at all costs – I meet a pair of bedraggled farmers wandering morosely towards Whiterun. I'm pondering whether to offer my help when they give me such a glare I decide not to. Hopefully it was merely because they hold the same sympathies as the beggar and the drunk I saw in Windhelm the first time I visited the city, and not because some action of mine has directly caused their problems. Oh well.

The sun has finally risen now, casting its golden glow across the tundra and dissolving the clouds above to reveal a clear, pure blue sky. The insects' racket dies down, and a nearby trio of Imperial soldiers sigh with relief – I obviously was not the only one worrying about drowned-out footsteps!

Following a curve in the road, I can see, off in the distance ahead and some way away from the road, a great tall pillar with a sort of dragons-head carving on top, like those that decorate the ruins of Bleak Falls Barrow. I wonder what it is there for?

Suddenly, out of nowhere, an Orc charges us, screaming a battle-cry as she raises her great warhammer above her helmeted head. I haul mine off my back and Shout, bathing the figure in flame and causing her to at least pause in her charge, giving me time to settle my grip before her first attack.

Serana casts her icicles at the Orc, adding to the freezing effects of the charm I have on my warhammer. With every hit, the woman staggers, and I barely give her time to lift her weapon, and soon we've defeated her and she lies dead at our feet.

Steadily the road turns northwards, heading for Rorikstead, but about an hour's run away we're stopped by an ambitious Khajiiti thief. Poor fool doesn't last long – like Serana, I've had enough of these money-hungry idiots. Don't they see that they'd make more if only they would bother to get a job of some sort? Adventuring has made me a pretty penny, and although it's dangerous, you can get by if you know how to fight. Rummaging through the now-dead cat's pockets, I prove my point by pulling out a small flawed gem and about five coins – I found better loot in the entry hall of Ustengrav!

The little farming town of Rorikstead is as quiet as usual, and I even manage to get through the 'ambush crossroad' without bother. The bandit camp is still empty, and the only living being we pass after that place is a mercenary off to 'investigate some trouble nearby'; not counting the numerous butterflies, of course.

A little further up the road we come across the ruined merchant cart. Have they still not cleaned this up? I thought someone would have, by now. Across the bridge, however, we discover another upset cart. This time, the dead horse is accompanied by a dead Cyrodiil and a vampire. Rummaging through the bloodsucker's pockets, I find a note; the contents are quite interesting indeed.

_I have new orders for you. Prepare an ambush just south of the Dragon Bridge. Take the Moth Priest to Forebears' Holdout for safe keeping until I can break his will. Malkus._

As I tuck the note into my bag along with the other written documents I've found recently, I notice a trail of blood splashes leading back across the bridge. They are still relatively fresh, so this ambush couldn't have happened more than a day ago. I follow the trail past the merchant cart, Serana behind me, and up a short hill, where the trail disappears into a cave. Swapping my warhammer for my bow, I take a deep breath, and sneak inside.

Down a short passage, I pause as we enter the large main chamber of the cavern. Across a rushing stream lies the ruins of what must have been a small fort or something.

Down some stone steps, the remains of a path leads to a bridge across the stream, before which patrol a pair of the great black dogs of the vampires. Carefully timing my shots, I manage to slay one without the other seeing, then shoot the other dead when it discovers its fallen brethren. I cross the bridge unseen by a patrolling thrall on the wall above, and aim a shot when I have a clear view of the unfortunate man. Unluckily I barely injure the fellow, but he runs a little way down the wall, forgets why and then returns to his previous spot. Poor creature – my next shot puts him out of his misery, and he falls forward, landing in front of Serana with a muffled thump. After adding his arrows to my own, I round the corner and sneak through the archway, stopping when I see, beyond the great fire in the middle of a rubble-filled courtyard, another enthralled bandit standing watch atop a balcony halfway up some stairs opposite where I stand.

My first arrow misses, and I barely get a chance for another shot as Serana rushes ahead of me to meet the man at the foot of the stairs, the nearest point he'd reached when investigating the source of the arrow. Serana's battle makes a little racket, and once the fellow is dead I hesitate for a minute or so, listening out for anything. We seem to have gone unnoticed, so I carefully climb the stairs, stopping just before I reach the top to listen in on the conversation being had nearby.

"The more you fight, the more you will suffer, mortal." A male voice says – that must belong to this Malkus, the leader of this little gang.

"I will resist you monster! I must!" Another man says. I can barely hear them above a roaring noise, the source of which I cannot see from here. This other fellow has to be the Moth Priest we need.

"How much longer can you keep this up, Moth Priest?" Asks Malkus contemptuously. "Your mind was strong, but you're exhausted from the struggle."

"Must… resist…" The Priest is failing.

"Yes; I can feel your defences crumbling. You want it to end. You want to give in to me. Now, acknowledge me as your master!" The vampire is confident now.

"Yes. Master." The Moth Priest drones. That can only mean he's been hypnotised and is now under the same sort of curse the thralls were. Hopefully this doesn't mean the fellow's death at my hands, though.

I nock an arrow, take a breath, and suddenly rise from my hiding spot, loosing my arrow and sending it straight into Malkus' neck. Another vampire, who hadn't made a sound during the leader's and the Moth Priest's 'conversation', draws her war-axe, but another arrow kills her and she slides to a halt at the foot of a great blue barrier preventing the priest's escape.

On Malkus' corpse, I find a glowing blue stone that must be the key to opening the barrier, the source of the roaring noise. Looking around, I spot a smaller balcony, the back of which is lined with luxurious, satin-lined coffins. I climb the stairs and slot the stone into a receptacle standing facing the barrier, which dissolves, freeing its captive.

"I serve my master's will." The Moth Priest says in a monotone. "But my master is dead, and his enemies will pay!" He draws his sword, which matches the one I received from the Blades, and rushes at me. Drawing my own Dwarven smith-work, I merely block his attacks, unwilling to hurt the fellow; Serana, however, casts her ice spell over and over until the priest suddenly lowers his blade and cowers in front of me.

"Wait, stop! I yield!" He cries. Serana stops, and the priest straightens. "That… that wasn't me you were fighting! I could see through my eyes, but I could not control my actions. Thank you for breaking that foul vampire's hold over me." The tonsured man steps towards me, dusting off his now damp robes.

"I owe you a debt for the timely rescue." He says.

"Are you alright?" I ask him. I can only imagine what he must have experienced while enthralled.

"I'm quite alright, thanks to you." He says, in his strong Cyrodiilic accent. "Dexion Evicus is my name. I'm a Moth Priest of the White-Gold Tower. These vampires claimed they had some purpose in store for me, but they wouldn't say what. Probably hoping to ransom me, the fools."

"I know why they needed you, because we need you for the same purpose." I inform him with a small frown.

"You do? Alright then, enough mysteries."

"We're called the Dawnguard, and we need you to read an Elder Scroll."

"You have an Elder Scroll? Remarkable! If my knowledge of history serves me, I recall that the Dawnguard was an ancient order of vampire hunters. I will be happy to assist you with your Elder Scroll. Just tell me where I need to go."

He's fairly confident about travelling alone, considering what just happened to him. "You can find us at Fort Dawnguard, near Stendarr's Beacon." I inform him, hoping he gets there ok.

"Very well. I'll hurry on my way there before more of those vampires turn up." Dexion wanders away towards the exit while I instead turn towards a chest in an alcove behind him to loot it.

It doesn't hold much, but I take what is there and pass Dexion on the way out – the least I can do is make sure the road ahead of him is most likely to be clear of any beasts and marauders. Leaving the cave, I find the road and follow it back south.

The only person I meet on the way to Rorikstead is a lone Argonian, in much the same state as the Skooma-dealer I met in the Rift, so I avoid eye contact and jog on. Through a still-quiet Rorikstead; I don't think Skyrim has ever been so silent! The only noise I can hear is the wind through the grass and my own footsteps, which are almost in sync with Serana's.

A couple more miles south, we pass an orange robe-clad Khajiit that I've seen hanging around various spots of wilderness in Skyrim. I wonder who that cat is and what he is doing roaming the country alone as he is. He doesn't seem to be affiliated with any of the caravans I've seen. Strange.

We also pass the wandering bard, plucking quietly on his lute as he wanders slowly down the road past the connection to the pass to the Reach. This guy is everywhere!

I'm getting rather tired by the time we return to Whiterun – while nothing much has really happened today, it has still been an exhausting one, so I turn up the road to the city. The market is quiet, the stall owners having already retired for the night, but Belethor's is still open, so I duck inside.

The man is his usual self, promising he'd sell his sister in a second if he had one, and taking my goods quite happily in exchange for a decent pile of gold.

In the Mare, a robed man who's been hanging around the bar for the past couple of times I've visited asks me if I'm interested in a 'friendly competition' to win a staff. I give him a friendly shake of the head – maybe next time, if I'm free – and chuck Hulda the requisite ten coins for the room.


	10. Butterflies

I leave the city before first light again, following the road to the chorus of the night-time insects once more. When I reach the crossroads near the Honningbrew Meadery, I instead turn up towards Riverwood – I think it's time to bite the arrow and go pay my respects at Helgen. I've been meaning to do it for a while now – since I left Blackreach, actually, I think – so if I'm going to do it I should just do it.

Passing a man murmuring something about the Legion, I enter the Sleeping Giant and slip down the stairs into the secret room, leaving the interesting things I'd found in the chest I've taken as my own. Glancing through my mementos, I notice that I have more books, notes and journals in there than I do anything else – and even then most of those are contracts for my death signed by Astrid.

I let the lid slam shut behind me as I climb back up the stairs and slide the wardrobe back shut again – once Serana is done down there, of course. Leaving the inn, I take in a deep breath of the fresh morning air and continue on up the road towards the ruined mountain town.

We're nearing the Guardian Stones when a pair of wolves leap out at me, but I barely have enough time to pull out my warhammer before my little vampire friend has skewered them both on icicles. As we finally reach Helgen, I pause – something doesn't feel right.

I draw my bow. I know it is probably just my being nervous because of the memories of what happened last time I was here, but I can't quite shake it off. A twig snaps behind me, and I spin around, bow drawn to see a bandit trying to sneak up on us.

Relieved that I was right after all, I shoot the bandit dead, along with his less sneaky companion, then drag open the great northern gates into the town.

Despite the current occupying force of bandits – one of which I can see wandering around the courtyard outside the fort – no repair works have been done. Oh, the fires are out, sure, but none of the buildings' roofs are intact, except for the fort, and the roads are still full of the rubble of toppled walls. The robbers anger me, so I sneak attack the wandering bandit, leaving my arrow in his corpse where he falls. I can see no others, so I sit for a moment on the shattered wall of a house and think, trying my hardest to remember the faces of the people I'd seen in my brief time in the town. I wonder if the child, Haming, survived? And what about Hadvar? He may have been Imperial, but death-by-dragon…

The sun is nearing its zenith when I rise from the rubble and push open the eastern gate to access the pass beyond. As we trot along the road, snow starting to swirl around us, I hear somewhere off in the rocky woodland to our left, the sound of a smith's hammer slamming against an anvil. I'm so busy trying to peer through the trees and the weather that I nearly collide with the horse of a mounted hunter, who glares at me briefly before returning her concentration to the path ahead.

The road winds its way through a low point in the mountains, and so I don't spot the Thalmor with their prisoner until we round the corner mere meters ahead of them. Unluckily, the snow is not so thick that I can't see their pompous, egotistical faces. It gladdens the vindictive side of me though when I spot their black robes leader shiver in the cold. Which reminds me to keep moving or I'll start feeling the cold air too.

Of course, the snow stops once we leave the pass, revealing, through a small gap in the golden-leafed trees, a small shack which attracts my curiosity. It is open to the elements, mostly – no doors, and several gaps in the wooden slats of the roof and walls – and contains several alchemical ingredients. As I gather these, intending to use them at the alchemy lab I can see outside through the walls, I notice a jar on the shelf containing a single golden butterfly. It is a beautiful thing to watch, flittering around inside the jar, and it seems to be doing ok in there, so I take the jar and carefully tuck it into a secure part of my bag.

I turn towards the backdoor, and am about to pass through when I notice a journal sat on the bedside cabinet.

_Coming to this area was a brilliant decision!_ Writes the owner of the little book. _The local flora seem to have many useful properties that I've been able to utilise into new potions! Outside, the rich soil has allowed the cuttings I've collected to grow into fine and bountiful plants! This afternoon, I think I will journey out for more mushrooms, as my current supply is beginning to dwindle. On a personal note, I have moved my alchemy work outside the shack. I find the midday air is a boon to my health, as well as inspirational to my work." _It seems that the poor fellow never came back from his gathering trip – the ramshackle little hut seems quite abandoned.

Gathering what ingredients I can from the little plants outside, I create what potions I can, discovering several new recipes as I go. The results go into my bag, along with the journal and the excess ingredients, and I go to return to the road when I am stopped by a pair of wolves. The poor creatures don't stand a chance against me and my vampire companion, and I am soon fighting a bear further down the road to Riften. This beast lasts a little longer than the wolves did, but with Serana's magical aid it too is quickly decorating the environment.

Passing a courier at the start of the trail to the Orc camp – I still haven't found them that Daedra heart, have I? – I continue towards the distant mossy walls of the city, encountering a Redguard who calls me a milk-drinker as we jog along. Doesn't anyone know any other insults around here? I think that's the third time this week I've been accused of drinking too much milk.

Finding the other road beyond the city, we pass another, rather lost looking courier, but instead of asking us for directions he merely proclaims that he has 'no time to chat'; that he has 'important deliveries to make'. Trust a man to stay unnecessarily lost.

Through the canyon, reaching the fortifications around dusk, we pass through the gate and into the fort. Dexion can wait – he's already in the entry hall, but he must need rest – so I instead head towards one of the bunks near the back of the fort. As I walk past one of the newer recruits, I overhear one of them saying something about Gunmar being an excellent smithing teacher. I could do with a little extra expertise in weapon and armour care, so I abandon the idea of sleep for now and hunt out Gunmar instead. I find him in the dining hall.

"Ah, there you are!" Seems he wanted to talk to me too. "If you're putting yourself in harm's way, you'd best be prepared. Take these." The rugged Nord hands me a full set of Dawnguard armour. I'll put it on in the morning – I've been wanting a change from the Blades armour for a while, but found nothing I thought suitable.

"I've heard you train in smithing. Will you train me?" I ask him, offering a large bag of gold in exchange.

"Sure." He leads me to a smithy set up in one of the large cave areas at the far back of the fort, and we spend the next couple of hours going through various smithing techniques, starting out simple and getting more complicated as I get the hang of handling the hammer and trimming leather.

"Thanks." I say when we finish, wiping my sweaty brow on an offcut of a wolf-skin – the furred side, of course.

"Take care of yourself." He responds, and I seek out one of the cots, doffing my armour and slumping on the furs with pleasure.


	11. The Skeletons Are Out of the Closet

Walking into the entry hall the next day, I find that neither Dexion nor Isran seem to have moved from where I left them the night before. People are strange. I approach Isran first.

"I'm impressed you could find a Moth Priest so quickly." He says.

"Does he have the Scroll? Is everything ready?" Why am I nervous? I'm not the one reading, this time.

"For the reading? Yeah, just let the old man know when you're ready."

I head across the pinkish tiles towards the robed man.

"Ah, hello there!" He says to a Dawnguard passing behind us.

"Glad to see you made it here safely, Dexion." I say to the fellow.

"Ah, my rescuer! It's good to see you again." The priest replies enthusiastically.

"Have my companions made you feel welcome?" I ask, as though I'm the one who runs the place.

"It's not exactly the hospitality I'm used to, but your man Isran has seen to my needs well enough. And might I add, this is a remarkable fortress. I have colleagues back home that would love to study this place in detail."

"Are you prepared to read the Elder Scroll?"

"Oh, most certainly! Let's find out what secrets the scroll can tell." Dexion draws out the scroll in its ornate case, and I take a step backwards. "Now, if everyone will please be quiet, I must concentrate." Dexion opens the scroll and peers at the contents.

"I see a vision before me, an image of a great bow. I know this weapon. It is Auriel's Bow! Now a voice whispers, saying 'Among the night's children a dread lord will rise. In an age of strife, when dragons return to the realm of men, darkness will mingle with light and the night and day will be as one.' The voice fades, and the words begin to shimmer and distort. But wait, there is more here. The secret of the bow's power is written elsewhere. I think there is more to the prophecy, recorded in other scrolls. Yes, I see them now… One contains the ancient secrets of the dragons, and the other speaks of the potency of ancient blood. My vision darkens, and I see no more. To know the complete prophecy, we must have the other two scrolls. I must rest now. The reading has made me weary." Dexion sighs, finally folding the scroll back into its casing.

"Come on, old man." Says Isran. "You should get some rest."

"Do you have a moment to talk?" Serana catches my attention.

Turning to her, I ask "What's on your mind?"

"That Moth Priest, Dexion. He said we needed two other Elder Scrolls. I think I know where we can start looking."

"Why didn't you say anything earlier?" I ask, before realising – when earlier am I talking about?

"Half the people in your little crew would just as soon kill me as talk to me. That doesn't exactly make me want to open up. I got a warmer welcome from my father, and that's saying something."

"Does Harkon even care about you anymore?"

"You know, I've asked myself the same thing." Serana sighs, putting a hand on her hip and leaning on the opposite leg. "I hoped that if he saw me, he might feel something again. But I guess I don't really factor in at this point. I don't think he even sees me as his daughter anymore. I'm just a… a means to an end."

"So where is this Elder Scroll?"

"We need to find my mother, Valerica. She'll definitely know where it is, and if we're lucky, she actually has it herself."

"You said you didn't know where she went." I'm confused.

"The last time I saw her, she said she'd go somewhere safe… somewhere that my father would never search. Other than that, she wouldn't tell me anything. But the way she said it… 'Someplace he would never search'… it was cryptic, yet she called attention to it."

"Sounds like she was being cautious."

"Maybe. What I can't figure out is why she said it that way. Besides, I can't imagine a single place my father would avoid looking. And he's had all this time too. Any ideas?"

I think for a little while, then something hits me. Whenever I couldn't find anything at home, I always found it right under my nose. "In Castle Volkihar?" I suggest.

"Wait… that almost makes sense! There's a courtyard in the castle; I used to help her tend a garden there. All of the ingredients for our potions came from there. She used to say that my father couldn't stand the place. Too… peaceful."

"Isn't that pretty risky, staying around the castle?" I wouldn't want to stay very near someone who possibly meant harm to me.

"Oh, absolutely. But my mother's not a coward. That is, I don't think we'll actually trip over her there; but it's worth a look."

"They aren't going to let us use the front door." I muse.

"True, but I know a way we can get to the courtyard without arousing suspicion. There's an unused inlet on the northern side of the island that was used by the previous owners to bring supplies into the castle. An old escape tunnel from the castle exits there. I think that's our way in."

"Let's go to the castle's secret entrance." I say, more cheerfully than I actually feel.

"It's around the side of the castle. Let's move." Serana dons her hood and heads towards the great doors.

Outside, the birds are singing and the sun is casting its brilliant light into the canyon, shining off of the metal head of the warhammer the Dawnguard ahead of us is wearing slung across her back. Heading through the gate in the wooden wall – making sure to close it behind us – we jog along the track, sending a lone elk scampering into the sloping wilderness, and pass through the crevice to find that the skies on the other side are not so clear. How can the weather be so different in such a short distance?

On the other side, we're greeted by a giggling Breton, who casts a fireball at us. We of course fight back, and the poor woman dies with her insane smile still on her lips. Heading north around Riften, we're stopped by another fireball careening across our path, this one sent by a flame Atronach. It is too easy to deal with it, but dodging its fiery explosion upon its death isn't. I managed to escape unharmed, but Serana gets caught in the tail end of one of the arms of the flames.

Finally we reach the road, and we begin to jog along it, down the steep slope past the three watchtowers. The road is very quiet; we pass through Fort Greenwall and Shor's Stone without meeting anything or anyone. At the bottom of the next slope, I instead lead Serana down the right hand turn along the road towards Windhelm – it's too difficult to get to the jetty on foot, so we'll instead take the boat from the Windhelm docks. It's still cloudy, and it looks like it's threatening rain.

We haven't left the rocky cliffs far behind when we encounter a bear just standing in the middle of the road, which of course takes offence at our approach and attacks. With Serana's icy attacks, and my sharp blade, the bear lasts as long as the average Nord's mead.

We're soon surrounded by the volcanic hot springs of Eastmarch. The road is lined by Dragon's Tongue, Jazbay Grape-vines, and Creep Clusters, most of which I harvest ingredients from – I'm beginning to enjoy alchemy and would like to get better at it.

Just as I pluck a flower off of another Dragon's Tongue plant, I hear a scream from the hot springs and look up just in time to miss being beheaded by an assassin. I use my Unrelenting Force shout on her to give me some time to draw my blade, throwing her back towards one of the nearby geyser pools. Serana casts icicles at her the whole time the foolish lizard is stumbling to her feet, and she barely has the energy left to lift her blade when I finish her off. The force of my swing sends her careening across the road to collide with a large rock. I find on her body the usual note and a couple of gems. I straighten as a Skeever catches up with us – it must have run quite a distance to try to get us – and with one simple swing of my sword I slay the rodent.

Further north, we pass a giant's camp, with a notice pinned to a nearby pole by a dagger. Pulling out the dagger so I can easily read the note, I smooth out the creases from the wind.

_Attention citizenry. The giant here has been given leave to keep his camp. Please do NOT attempt to make trade, disrupt the mammoths, gawk at or otherwise disturb the giant. Resting here is not advised._ Obviously someone had either ignored the sign or it had been posted afterwards, because behind the pole is a crushed cart, wares scattered all around it. I can see no bodies, though, so the owners must have escaped unharmed, but I'm not going to approach just in case the giant, who is standing nearby, takes offense. I try unsuccessfully to reattach the notice, so I instead pocket the dagger and the notice, mentally making a note to tell someone about it when I reach the city.

After killing a wolf that attempts to surprise us, we continue along the road, past the wandering bard and across the bridge into Windhelm. There are no guards nearby, not even one on the gate, so I head for the docks – I'm not going to search out a guard especially. I think the crushed cart should be warning enough for now, anyway.

Renting the boat at the dock, I doze off, letting the waves rock me, and I end up falling asleep sitting up.

I wake when the boat bumps against the toppled timbers of the ancient jetty, and like the last one, the boatman rushes away as soon as we disembark. We hop straight into the other boat and row it across the water to the lonely island with its imposing castle.

Once the boat is safely beyond the tide-mark, I lead Serana around the left-hand side of the castle.

"Yeah, just around this bend." Serana says as we reach a rocky spur. Clambering over it, we find a dark dirt beach, the castle towering above.

"The castle looks so big from down here." My vampire companion mentions. "I mean, it is big, but, well… even bigger."

Across another stony pile, I find an abandoned dock, patrolled by about four skeletons. Drawing my enchanted bow, I manage to slay two of them before being spotted, and even then the remaining two focus on Serana, allowing me to focus on my aim, though it is quite difficult when Serana has chosen to use her dagger. The skeletons are soon scattered across the docks, and I climb up the several sets of stairs and we slip through the door to the undercroft.

Waiting to greet us is a starved-looking skeever. It says hello in the traditional skeever manner, and we respond in kind. Past its corpse, we enter a large sewer-like room, with three of what Serana called death hounds wandering around it. One shot each and they are dead.

"The old water cistern." Serana says, quiet enough that her words don't echo yet still loud enough to hear. "On some days, this would smell just… be glad you weren't here then."

Crossing a bridge, I rummage through a stack of rotted coffins, finding nothing and feeling guilty afterwards, then carefully loot a trapped chest – since I was standing to the side I managed to avoid the sharp spear that shot out of the grate in front of the chest.

Working our way around the room, we encounter a vampire wearing rags lurking in a smallish area decorated with a couple of small wardrobes, an alchemy table and a lever, which must lower the wooden bridge I'd seen through another doorway nearby. The vampire sees us, and attacks us, hissing. Serana deals with the creature, and it drops a scrap of parchment, which I pick up to read the scruffy writing on it.

_Not good enough to live in their stupid keep, am I? Stupid sods don't realise I've moved into the undercroft and started taking control of their own death hounds. I'll get my revenge._

Proof that some just don't take to 'the turn' as well as others, I guess. I suppose there are some who lose their grip on sanity in the process of becoming a vampire. I tuck the note in my bag, loot the area of all the valuable items, then pull the lever, hearing with satisfaction the slamming of the wooden bridge on the stone floor beyond.

Running around the balcony and scrambling down the stairs, I find that the bridge only goes across to a walkway through the middle of the tall room. On one side, a skeleton lurks in the room, which I kill with one shot. I've become quite the master archer since I arrived in Skyrim.

"Take a left up here. This is one of those weird double-barred security measures that my father put in when he got more paranoid."

Following her instructions, I take the left turn into the rooms on that side of the walkway. There are rusty spiked chains hanging from the ceiling, but we avoid them dextrously, making our way into a room with three death hounds and piles of gnawed bones covering the ground. The death hounds stand no chance against my arrows, and they make no sound as they die, which might explain the grate in the ceiling opening, allowing more bloody bones to topple into the chamber. Across the room is a raised area, upon which I can see a chest and a skeleton lying as though trying to reach the contents of a backpack. Using a convenient pile of bones to give me a leg up, I climb onto the raised area to loot the chest and the bag, also picking up a healing potion and a purse clutched in the unfortunate hands of the skeleton.

I need a bit of a rest, so I sit on the edge of the balcony where the rail has broken away and beckon Serana to come closer. I want to learn more about her, now I have the chance for a proper conversation where we're unlikely to be interrupted by something or someone.

"Yes? What did you need?" She asks, leaning against the wall of the balcony.

"Just to chat. Were you and Valerica close?" I ask her.

"Before my father became obsessed with the prophecy, mother and I spent quite a bit of time together. She was very fond of her alchemical garden in the castle courtyard. She taught me quite a bit about cultivating quality reagents."

"So you always got along?"

"Like the best of friends. I would never hesitate to share anything with her."

"But then it all changed."

"It was very sudden." Serana sighs. "It was almost like one day we were a normal family, and then the next I didn't know who they were. I'd try to visit my mother in the garden, and she'd quickly shoo me away saying she was much too busy."

"That's why we're headed there?" I ask her. There must be something important there.

"She had to be up to something in that garden. I'm hoping it's a clue that will tell us where she went."

"Did you spend a lot of time down here?" I change the subject.

"I liked to explore. My parents almost never let me off the island, so yeah, I poked around down here a lot. It was a little quieter back then. Guess a little vampire girl was enough to scare off the rats."

That confuses me. I thought once you become a vampire, you stop aging, so if you become a vampire as a child, you stay a child…

"That sounds pretty lonely." I say instead.

"It was. But I got used to it."

"Tell me about your family." I ask, then wish I'd phrased it differently – it came out sounding like a demand.

"There's not a whole lot to tell. You've already seen my father's obsession. My mother's not a whole lot better, but you'll see that soon enough."

"It sounds like you don't like either of them very much." I point out.

"It's not that simple. I guess it never is with families, is it? What about you? What were your parents like?"

It's actually rather hard to remember them. Father died when he volunteered as a member of a group who wanted to try to close the Oblivion Gate that opened outside Balmora – he never even made it inside, cut down by a clannfear that came out in front of him – and Mother disappeared when the Red Mountain erupted. I still don't know whether she lives or not.

"They were good people. I miss them." I reply.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bring up a bad memory." I must look bleaker than I thought.

"It's fine."

"Let's uh… let's just keep going." Suggests Serana, and I hop down from my perch and continue down into a corridor with archways smothered in spider-web. Oh no.

Hacking through one reveals a chest, with some good loot in it, and through the other is a room dominated by the giant spider that wove the web.

It must have been weakened by something before us, because it only takes two arrows to slay. The wall of the other side of the room is made up of iron grid-work with a great view of the bridge room. I'm guessing the other lever is in this room somewhere. Knowing my luck, it's under the corpse of the spider. I shove the body out of the way, and I discover I was right. Pulling the lever, I head back towards the exit of the room as behind me, the crash of the other bridge echoes through the chamber.

Back in the bridge room, I head across the other bridge and up the stairs behind it.

"This leads out to the courtyard. Just head for the door." My vampire friends says behind me, and at the top of the stairs, I push open the mentioned door and into the bright daylight beyond.

"We've made it to the courtyard." Serana sighs behind me, then pushes past me, a look of horror on her face. "Oh no… What happened to this place?" She climbs the short staircase and pauses at the top. "Everything's been torn down… the whole place looks… well, dead. It's like we're the first to set foot here in centuries." Serana runs towards a broken doorway, with me trotting behind. "This used to least into the castle's great hall. It looks like my father had it sealed up. I used to walk through here after evening meals." Ok, that's un-nerving. "It was beautiful once." She then dashes towards a walled area of overgrowth. "This was my mother's garden. It… do you know how beautiful something can be when it's tended by a master for hundreds of years? She would have hated to see it like this." She turns. "Wait…"

Following Serana again, she runs to the great centrepiece of the courtyard. It looks like a giant sundial, but the markings around the dial are all wrong…

"Something's wrong with the moondial here." Of course – what use would a vampire have for a sundial? "Some of the crests are missing and the dial is askew. I didn't even know the crests could be removed. Maybe my mother's trying to tell us something?"

I glance around the courtyard. If I wanted to hide, I'd still need a way of returning… with a small spark of an idea burning in my mind, I start thoroughly searching the courtyard, taking samples of all the plants as I go, and soon enough I find the first of the missing crests. Looks like I was right – after about half an hour's search, I have found the rest of the crests, so I return to the moondial and replace the crests. With a scraping sound, the dial returns to its proper position and a spiral of steps appears in the inside of the moondial.

"Very clever, Mother. Very clever." Serana says thoughtfully. "I've never been in those tunnels before, but I'd bet they run right under the courtyard and into the tower ruins. Well, at least we're getting closer. Let's go." She indicates for me to go first, so I trot down the steps and through the old wooden door at the bottom.

The door leads into a small room, with a couple of shelves inside and a pull chain in the corner. One tug on the chain pulls up the opposite wall, allowing us to climb through a fireplace into a large, abandoned kitchen. I wander around, gathering the remaining good ingredients from the counters.

"I've never even seen this part of the castle before. Be careful; I don't know what might be around." Serana warns me, and I open the next door into a large banquet hall, the long table broken and the chairs occupied by skeletons; all of which have the air of merely waiting for a victim, unlike the one in the hound's room that was merely dead. I take the precaution of shooting each one, and the way they slump after the arrow hits instead of scattering merely proves my suspicions correct.

In the next room, a stone gargoyle sits staring at the doorway, but as I step into the room, the braziers on either side of it burst into life, and the statue explodes, revealing itself to be a real, living creature. For some reason though, it doesn't notice us – until my first arrow slams into its chest. Then it spots us, and it begins rushing towards us. Serana is constantly casting her icicles at it, and I am shooting it, so it barely gets within five feet of us before it crashes to the ground, defeated and dead.

Passing through another door into the next room, I don't spot the two skeletal occupants until they rise from their thrones and give a dusty groan. An arrow each does for them, knocking them back and destroying them, and when I climb the steps to their seats to retrieve my arrows I find a locked door at the end of the raised area. Picking it open reveals a closet full of goodies, so I don't proceed into the next area without looting it completely.

Up a flight of stairs, lined with more self-lighting braziers, we find the top occupied by another gargoyle, which of course is more than a mere sculpture. It's rather difficult using a bow in such a short distance, but I daren't take the time to switch to my sword in case it knocks me down the stairs into Serana. Besides, every arrow I send driving into its grey hide staggers it back a little further until it lies dead near the entry to the next part of the ruin, where a skeleton waits. It doesn't see us, though, so I take the time to loot the gargoyle's body before attacking the bony figure.

As the skeleton topples, I hear the slamming noise that always accompanies the raising of a corpse, and sure enough, when I turn around I find that Serana has raised the gargoyle as an assistant. No matter – it might actually help at some point, though I doubt it. At least it won't groan all the time like the humans she raises.

The next room has a good amount of stuff in it that catches my eye, and there is a locked door nearby, so both out of curiosity and a want to improve my skills, I open it to find it opens onto a balcony over the previous room with a chest on it. The only contents are a couple of potions and some gold, but I take it anyway then return to a waiting Serana – and the ash pile which was the gargoyle – and continue our journey through the ruined rooms.

The next set of stairs is almost blocked by rubble, but we manage to weave our way through, shooting the skeleton that lurks at the top, and sneak through the door behind it. In the next room, there is a raised area opposite and three skeletons patrolling both the lower half and the raised half. Shooting them, we pick our way across their scattered bones and make our way into the next part. There, we find a largely empty room with an alcove at the end dominated by the gargoyle crouched in front of the chain that must be what opens the portcullis to our left.

Gingerly, I edge around the stationary creature – maybe this one is just a statue – and give the chain a tug.

Of course, now the gargoyle springs to life, but it doesn't see me where I am hidden behinds its wing, and it heads straight for Serana, who is casting for all her worth. I join in the fight with my bow, and the monster is soon dead. I'm getting rather tired now – I'm pretty sure it was getting dark when we entered the Undercroft, so for all I know we – well, I – have been awake for two days straight. Serana must have been awake for longer than that. We'll have to stop for rest soon.

Up the stairs beyond the portcullis, yet another gargoyle bursts to life before us, and it takes three of my arrows to fell it, like with the others, but this time, I cannot retrieve them as they are buried too deep in the beast.

I open the door opposite for practice, then ignore the revealed corridor to pull the chain to open another portcullis into a large chamber, occupied by more skeletons. Once they've been dealt with, we'll rest, I think.

Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam. Dead, all of them. This is not going to be an easy night, if night it is. I decide to use the chance to get a little more out of Serana. Gods, it sounds like I want to interrogate her.

"We're getting close, I'm sure of it." She says.

"What happened to the castle courtyard?" I ask.

"If I had to guess, I'd say that the moment my mother fled the castle, Father went on a rampage. Knowing him, anything at all that reminded him of her was just destroyed."

"Then he just walled it off."

"It appears that way. I suppose he wanted to put the past behind him. Perhaps if he had spent more time with us, he would have recognised the beauty for himself."

"Do you know this place?"

"I had always just assumed that the other tower was completely destroyed inside. My mother kept this a secret, even from me. She must have been up to something she thought was dangerous."

"Did your mother keep gargoyles here?" That can be the only reason those monsters are here.

"Not that I ever saw." Serana replies. "My mother had a bit of a thing for magical constructs. Not… Not what you're thinking. She just found them fascinating." I wasn't thinking anything!

"Were you always a vampire?" I get out of my bag as many soft things as I have, which, it turns out, isn't that much. I pile them into as large a nest as I can make with them.

"That's… a long story." Serana hesitates.

"I want to hear it." I encourage her, sitting down on the cold stone and wishing I'd picked up more clothes from the cabinets and wardrobes we'd passed on the way here.

"I guess… we kind of have to go way back. To the very beginning. Do you know where vampirism came from?"

"I would guess it came from a Daedric Lord."

"Exactly! The first vampire came from Molag Bal. She… was not a willing subject. But she was still the first. Molag Bal is a powerful Daedric Lord, and his will is made reality. For those willing to subjugate themselves, he will still bestow the gift, but they must be powerful in their own right before earning his trust."

"How did you actually become a vampire, then?" I've gotten even more curious now.

"The ceremony was… degrading. Let's not revisit that." Serana's face darkens, but she continues to talk anyway. "But we all took part in it. Not really a wholesome family activity, but I guess it's something you do when you give yourselves to a Daedric Lord."

"How has it affected your family?" I'm guessing not in a good way, from what I've heard, but I still want to hear her assessment of things.

"Well, you've met most of us. My father's not exactly the most stable, and eventually he drove my mother crazy with him. And it all ended with me being locked underground for who knows how long. It's definitely been a bad thing, on the whole."

"Are you alright?" I'm a bit worried about her now; she looks rather melancholy.

"I will be." She replies, settling herself down as best she can in one of the remaining intact chairs. "Just give me a little time."

Leaving her to it, I curl up in the tiny nest I had made and try to sleep.


	12. Valerica and a Saint

The first thing I do when I wake up is stretch extensively. I'm stiff, I'm cold, and I didn't even get as much sleep as I thought I would. Gathering up what had been my bed and stuffing it into my bag, I gaze around the room, not finding anything worth looting in it.

The next little area has a couple of wardrobes in it, so I empty them then lead Serana along the corridor and across a bridge over the room we'd spent the night in. Another shorter corridor leads us to a room dominated by a long table in the middle of the room with a skeleton lying on it. The corpse has no weapons, so I assume it isn't going to get up, so we round the table and head on through the next corridor, which is ended by a large wooden door. Pushing the door open I find the next room has several stationary gargoyles inside, a couple seemingly half-finished as the bottom half is still just a solid hunk of stone. Warily, I sneak inside.

I was right to be cautious – as we're halfway through the room three of the ugly things smash to life and try to surprise us. It probably would have worked if they hadn't screeched as they broke free of their stony coating. I shoot at one while Serana casts at another; I'm backing away as I shoot but have to stop when my back hits the wall – luckily at the same time my latest shot slays the gargoyle attacking me. I aim at the other as Serana finishes off hers and we work together to destroy the thing, which is standing, head swinging back and forth, still unable to decide which of us to attack. It never gets the chance to make its mind up.

With the awful things finally deceased, I have to bend over to catch my breath. It might have been because I was expecting it, but the things bursting to life had made me jump about two feet in the air! My heart's racing, and that little corner of me is rejoicing in how good the fighting – the killing – felt. Supressing the feeling again, I head towards a chain hanging next to a fireplace and give it a good tug, revealing a hidden staircase. The stairs go round and round, in a square spiral, until we find a door, beyond which is a large laboratory of some sort.

The room is lined with shelves and small chests meant for the end of beds, and in the middle is a large, indented circular pattern lit around the edge by candles, most of which went out when we pushed the door open.

"Look at this place. This has to be it!" Serana cries and pushes past me towards a table covered in bones. "I knew she was deep into necromancy. I mean, she taught me everything I know, but I had no idea she had a setup like this. Look at all this! She must have spent years collecting these components." She turns to the centrepiece of the room. "And what's this thing? I'm not sure about this circle, but it's obviously… something. Let's take a look around. There has to be something here that tells us where she's gone."

"What exactly are we looking for?" I ask, glancing around the room. Many of the ingredients are wilting. I think I should make use of them before they all go rotten – I can always gather or buy more to replenish her stock.

"My mother was meticulous about her research. If we can find her notes, there might be some hints in there. I remember she used to keep a small journal – see if you can dig it up."

As I roam the room, gathering the ingredients and readable books, Serana studies the circle. Among some of the ingredients, I find a couple of things that I don't quite recognise, so I leave them where they are and head towards the bookcases in an alcove near the door. There – this little book must be the journal we're looking for. I skim over the first couple of entries to make sure.

_27__th__ Last Seed. Harkon's short-sightedness is becoming a serious problem. I've warned him time and time again that his foolish prophecy would cast far too much light on our people and yet he refuses to so much as listen to a word I say. I've become less a wife and more of an annoyance in his eyes. Devoting attention to my work is the only solace I can find while enduring his ridiculous crusade._

_28__th__ Last Seed. I've had a breakthrough today. I was able to attune the portal vessel to the Soul Cairn properly by using a small sample of ingredients. Although the portal opened only for a few seconds, I'm confident that with the proper formula, it can be sustained indefinitely. I feel like I'm missing a key ingredient, something of sufficient potency that can resist the forces trying to prevent my intrusion. Communing with the Ideal Masters has proved worthless. They speak in riddles and offer no assistance whether I ensure them a steady supply of souls or not. If I'm to escape Harkon's clutches, I need to keep the portal open long enough to carry me away from here… forever if need be._

Yes, this is the diary I'm looking for! I take it to Serana, who is still studying the circle.

"Any luck yet?" She asks as I approach.

"I've found your mother's notes."

"You did? Let me see them" I give her the notebook, and she flips through it.

"What's this 'Soul Cairn' that she mentions?"

"I only know what she told me. She had a theory about soul gems – that the souls inside of them don't just vanish when they're used… they end up in the Soul Cairn."

"Why did she care where used souls went?"

"The Soul Cairn is home to very powerful beings. Necromancers send them souls, and receive powers of their own in return. My mother spent a lot of time trying to contact them directly, to travel to the Soul Cairn itself."

"If she made it there, we'll find her." I assure her.

"That circle in the centre of the room is definitely some kind of portal. If I'm reading this right, there's a formula here that should give us safe passage into the Soul Cairn."

"What do we need?"

Serana peers at the last page. "A handful of soul gem shards, some finely ground bonemeal, a good bit of purified void salts… oh… damn it!"

"What's wrong?"

"We're also going to need a sample of her blood… which, if we could get that, we wouldn't even be trying to do this in the first place."

"You share her blood." I point out.

"Hmm… Not bad. We'd better hope that's good enough. Mistakes with these kinds of portals can be… gruesome. Anyway, enough of that. Let's get started."

"Are all of those ingredients here?"

"Oh, definitely. Mother would have plenty of those ingredients in her laboratory. You just need to find them." Serana returns the journal to me and resumes her study of the circle. She's not going to help me look, then.

Remembering the odd items I'd seen in my previous search of the room, I gather them up and place them in the bowl at the top of the balcony over the circle.

"Then the rest is up to me." Serana says after climbing the stairs to the balcony behind me. "Are you ready to go? I'm not entirely sure what this thing is going to do when I add my blood."

"I'm ready." I brace myself.

"Okay, here goes." Serana bites deep into her own wrist and lets the blood drip into the bowl. With a roar, the circle opens up, the pattern swirling around to form a staircase into the purple portal beneath.

"By the blood of my ancestors…" Serana murmurs. "She actually did it… created a portal to the Soul Cairn. Incredible!"

I take a deep breath and descend the stairs… Ow! What in Oblivion? I can feel myself getting weaker as the purple clouds from the portal swirl around me, so I climb back up the stairs. Luckily, once I leave the cloud, the draining sensation dissipates.

"Are you alright? That looked painful." Serana asks, a worried frown marring her strong features.

"It was. What happened?"

"Now that I think about it… I should have expected that. Sorry." I shrug forgiveness, and Serana continues. "It's hard to describe. The Soul Cairn is… well, hungry, for lack of a better word. It's trying to take your life force as payment."

"So there's no way in then."

"There might be, but I don't think you're going to like it. Vampires aren't counted among the living. I could probably go through there without a problem." Is Serana saying what I think she's saying?

"Are you saying that I need to become a vampire?"

"Not your first choice, I'd guess." She was right. I don't like it.

"There has to be another way." I hope I don't offend her. Serana seems to enjoy being a vampire.

"Maybe. We could just 'pay the toll' another way. It wants a soul, so we give it a soul. Yours."

What? "Wouldn't that kill me?"

"My mother taught me a trick or two. I could partially soul trap you, and offer that gem to the Ideal Masters. It might be enough to satisfy them. It would make you a bit weaker when we travel through the Soul Cairn, but we might be able to fix that once we're inside. Maybe…"

"Those are my only options?" If we didn't absolutely have to do this…

"I'm sorry." Serana says again. "I wish I knew a better way, something that would be easier for you. Just know that… whatever path you choose, I won't think any less of you. Sometimes things just have to be done. I know that better than anybody."

I turn away to think about what I should do. The little corner of me that I wish I could be rid of is gleeful at the idea of the power brought with vampirism, urging me to take the plunge and accept the 'gift'. But I don't want that! An elf's lifespan is long enough – I don't want to live forever as a vampire. That does it – there's only one option left.

"Have you made up your mind?" Serana asks as I turn back.

"Soul trap me. No offence, but I won't feel right as a vampire."

"Are you sure? I'm willing to do it, but you need to think it through. You'll remain mortal, but you'll find yourself weakened in the Soul Cairn."

I'm far stronger than I was when I left Helgen. I can stand a little weakness. I think. "I'm ready."

"I know this is difficult for you. I hope you trust me. I'd never do anything that could hurt you."

Just get on with it woman! "I trust you completely."

"Thank you. Let's not waste any more time then. I promise to make this as painless as possible. Hold still." Her spell casts a light as purple as the portal behind me briefly across my eye, and it feels like I'm wearing a full body suit that's two sizes too small, but I can cope.

I turn around, take a deep breath, and again descend the stairs.

This time, instead of pain, there is another purple flash, and once I can see again, I find myself peering across a rather disturbing vista.

The stairs lead down to a dusty track through a barren desert, punctuated by black ruins, gaseous fissures, and the ghostly figures of trapped souls. There are purple balls of light, like wisps, floating around the place, and there are tubular fungi growing scattered around. I look up – and immediately look down. I don't ever want to gaze into that empty hole in the sky ever again. I saw its like in Sovngarde, but somehow there, it felt warmer, more welcoming. This one scares me to my core.

Down the stairs I go, following the dusty path until, rising from the dirt ahead of us, two black skeleton-like things appear, waving swords and rushing towards us. I shoot back in self-defence – Serana was right, I am weaker; the bowstring is harder to pull back than I remember – and soon the skeletons are reduced to heaps of… goo is the only word I can find to describe the puddle before me.

Further down the path, we find a soul standing in the middle of the path, seemingly searching for something, or someone.

"You must help me find my Arvak!" He says when he spots us. "He doesn't deserve to be in a place like this!"

"Calm down. Who's Arvak?" I ask.

"Arvak, my horse. We came to this horrible place together. We were attacked by monsters, so I told him to run. Please, he's such a loyal creature, and he's been running for so long. You have to save him! A place like this will change you…"

"How can I help him?" I try to ask, but the soul has seemingly already forgotten about us.

"Arvak! Arvak, where are you? Arvak, please come back! Come back!" the soul takes a step towards the edge of the path, then fades away.

Unsure what to make of the encounter, I continue along the road, up and through a gap in a massive black-stone wall and along the next path. Suddenly, a skeletal horse gallops across the path in front of me and a little distance into the drab sand, before fading away like the soul before. That must have been Arvak! There was no way I could have caught the poor thing though. The soul was right – this place has done wonders, and not the good kind, for that unfortunate beast.

Only a little further on, we're attacked by four more of the black 'bonemen', as Serana named them for some reason, and it's only with some quick shooting that we manage to destroy them before they reach us. Following the path to its end, we come across a giant black building, the entrance to which is blocked by some sort of barrier. Beyond it, I can see a figure dressed in much the same attire as Serana, and with many of the same features too. This must be the famous Valerica.

"Mother? Mother!" Serana rushes up the steps towards the barrier, with me not far behind.

"Maker… it can't be. Serana?" Valerica, as I expected, is not too happy to see us.

"Is it really you? I can't believe it! How do we get inside? We have to talk."

"Serana! What are you doing here? Where's your father?" Valerica is about as harsh as the desert surrounding us, it seems.

"He doesn't know we're here. I don't have time to explain."

"I must have failed. Harkon's found a way to decipher the prophecy, hasn't he?" I don't think Valerica would give us time to explain even if we had any.

"No, you've got it all wrong." Serana tries to correct her. "We're here to stop him… to make everything right."

"Wait a moment… you've brought a stranger here? Have you lost your mind?"

"No, you don't –"

Valerica ignores her daughter, instead focussing on me. "You. Come forward. I would speak with you." I take a step closer. "So, how has it come to pass that a vampire hunter is in the company of my daughter? It pains me to think you'd travel with Serana under the guise of her protector in an effort to hunt me down." Wow – this woman is as out if it as her husband!

"There is no ruse. I want to keep her safe." I fold my arms against her golden glare.

"Coming from one who murders vampires as a trade, I find it hard to believe your intentions are noble. Serana has sacrificed everything to prevent Harkon from completing the prophecy. I would have expected her to explain that to you."

"That's why I'm here for the Elder Scroll."

"You think I'd have the audacity to place my own daughter in that tomb for the protection of her Elder Scroll alone? The scrolls are merely a means to an end. The key to the Tyranny of the Sun is Serana herself."

"What do you mean?"

Valerica enters the same manner which my tutor had used to explain things to me when I was younger – and just as stubbornly stupid as I am now! "When I fled Castle Volkihar, I fled with two Elder Scrolls. The scroll I presume you found with Serana speaks of Auriel and his arcane weapon, Auriel's Bow. The second scroll declares that 'the blood of Coldharbour's Daughter will blind the eye of the Dragon."

"How does Serana fit in?" I query, even though I think I see where this is going.

"Like myself, Serana was a human once. We were devout followers of Lord Molag Bal. Tradition dictates that females be offered to Molag Bal on his summoning day. Few survive the ordeal; those that do emerge as a pure-blooded vampire. We call such confluences 'Daughters of Coldharbour."

"The Tyranny of the Sun requires Serana's blood?"

"Now you're beginning to see why I wanted to protect Serana, and why I've kept the other Elder Scroll as far from her as possible."

"Are you saying that Harkon means to kill her?"

Valerica almost rolls her eyes at me. "If Harkon obtains Auriel's Bow and Serana's blood was used to taint the weapon, the Tyranny of the Sun would be complete. In his eyes, she'd be dying for the good of all vampires." Harsh.

"I would never allow that to happen."

"And how exactly do you plan on stopping him?"

"I'll kill Harkon."

"If you believe that, then you're a bigger fool than I originally suspected." Come on, woman, you're looking at the girl who killed Alduin here! Well, I had help, but that's beside the point… "Don't you think I weighed that option before I enacted my plans?"

"And Serana's opinion in this?"

"You care nothing for Serana or our plight." Says the woman who locked her daughter into a tomb for more than an age. "Whether or not you've become one of us in order to survive the Soul Cairn, you're still a vampire hunter at heart. You're here because we're abominations in your mind. Evil creatures that need to be destroyed."

Peeved is only the mildest word for what I feel right now. "Serana believes in me. Why won't you?"

"Serana?" Valerica returns her glare to her daughter. "This stranger aligns herself with those that would hunt you down and slay you like an animal, yet I should entrust you to her?"

"This 'stranger' has done more for me in the brief time I've known her than you've done in centuries!" Serana argues back.

"How dare you! I gave up everything I cared about to protect you from that fanatic you call a father!"

"Yes, he's a fanatic… he's changed; but he's still my father! Why can't you understand how that makes me feel?"

"Oh, Serana… If you'd only open your eyes. The moment your father discovers your role in the prophecy, that he needs your blood, you'd be in terrible danger."

"So to protect me you decided to shut me away from everything I cared about? You never asked me if hiding me in that tomb was the best course of action, you just expected me to follow you blindly." Serana grows more heated with every word. "Both of you were obsessed with your own paths! Your motivations might have been different, but in the end, I'm still just a pawn to you too. I want us to be a family again. But I don't know if we can ever have that. Maybe we don't deserve that kind of happiness; maybe it isn't for us. But we have to stop him, before he goes too far, and to do that we need the Elder Scroll." Serana wipes a tear from her eye, and Valerica seems taken aback.

"I'm sorry, Serana." She says. "I didn't know… I didn't see. I've allowed my hatred of your father to estrange us for too long. Forgive me. If you want the Elder Scroll, it's yours." She turns to me again. "Your intentions are still somewhat unclear to me… but for Serana's sake, I'll assist you in any way I can."

"Do you have the Elder Scroll with you?"

"Yes, I've kept it safely secured here ever since I was imprisoned. Fortunately, you're in a position to breach the barrier that surrounds these ruins."

"What do we need to do?" I brace myself for what must be a rough task ahead.

"You need to locate the tallest of the rocky spires that surround these ruins. At their bases the barrier's energy is being drawn from unfortunate souls that have been exiled here. Destroy the Keepers that are tending them, and it should bring the barrier down."

"We'll return soon." I go to turn away, but Valerica's voice stops me.

"One more word of warning. There's a dragon that calls itself Durnehviir roaming the Cairn. Be wary of him. The Ideal Masters have charged him with overseeing the Keepers, and will undoubtedly intervene if you're perceived as a threat." Valerica turns away, and I descend the stairs, Serana in tow, and head towards the first really tall tower I can see, somewhere east-north-east of the entrance to the ruins.

For a little way we're merely following the wall of the ruin, but soon we're running cross country. A pair of creatures that are like legless bonemen appear and try to attack us, but they last about as long as their legged brethren do. I may be weak, but the evil denizens of this place are too, it seems. We soon reach the base of the tower. What I'm looking for must be somewhere further up it, but can see no way of getting there.

I sit on the edge of a well-like structure in a room in the base, intending to contemplate what to do now. I wonder what the time is. I shift around, still a little stiff from my sleep. It feels like quite a bit of time has passed, but there doesn't seem to be day or night in this place – I fall in the well.

Instead of falling for some time then hitting the bottom, as I expected I would, my vision is instead clouded by an oily blackness, and when it clears I find myself lying next to another well. I seem to be on some sort of raised platform, so instead of getting up, I crawl over to the edge and peer over.

I am a very long way from the ground. Far beneath me I can see Serana trying to find where I'd got to, so I whistle down to her, catching her attention. She blinks, then looks back towards the well – the teleport – and jumps in, vanishing in another – well, puff isn't quite the word – blob of blackness and appearing next to my feet.

I edge away from the precipice and stand, taking my bow from her proffered hand. I must have dropped it when I slipped. Luckily, I didn't lose any of my arrows – the ones that slipped out of my quiver travelled up here with me – so I gather my arrows and my wits and start towards a set of nearby stairs.

We pass a group of dejected-looking souls and clamber up another set of stairs – to almost bump into a headless, armoured figure. Its bow seems to be very powerful, so I start shooting as fast as I can, trying to knock it back towards the edge of the tower. With the help of Serana's icy bolts, the Keeper is quickly defeated, having only loosed one arrow at me and missing my head by about a foot. Unluckily, the bow dissolves along with its corpse, so I don't get the chance of an upgrade.

Nearby is another teleport, so I hop into it and appear back at the bottom of the tower, where I turn in a circle until I see another tall tower to the south-south-west. As Serana appears behind me I head off in that direction.

Not far from the first tower, we come across a sort of tall stone pagoda, with four souls seemingly worshipping what is inside it. Peering in, I see on a pedestal sits a horse's skull. That can only be the unfortunate Arvak's, so I head into the pagoda and pick it up, intending to take it to his former owner. Hearing a growl behind me, I turn to see that the souls are now black skeletons, who seem to take offense at my retrieval of the skull. Drawing my sword, I turn the motion into a swift block as the closest of the bonemen attacks me. The area turns into a mess of bones and metal swinging and slashing as Serana and I fight back against the creatures, one by one reducing them to heaps of black goo at our feet. Sheathing my sword, I continue on our travels towards the next tower.

A little further on, we find a barren campsite, fire doused – or never lit in the first place – and standing near it, muttering, a soul who seems to me to be rather familiar, but I can't place just why.

"Huh? What do you want?" He asks when we come near.

"What exactly are you doing?" I ask him.

"How does anyone expect me to write my opus with all of these rude interruptions?"

"Opus? What do you mean?"

"'What do I mean', indeed!" The soul complains, his gravelly voice also very familiar. I swear I've heard it somewhere before, maybe when I was younger? "If I hadn't lost all of the pages, I wouldn't be in this predicament and we wouldn't be having this conversation."

"Let's just start at the beginning…" I suggest.

"Very well. I suppose a moment or two of my time couldn't hurt. I am Jiub. Some call me Saint Jiub. Others call me Jiub the Eradicator. Perhaps you've heard of me?" Wait, that Jiub? The one who slew all the cliff-racers that plagued Vvardenfell? What in Oblivion is he doing here?! I remember where I'd seen him before, now. Back in Balmora – I can't have been more than ten years old or so – and the whole town came to say farewell to Jiub as he passed through on his way to wherever it was he was off to. Somewhere off the island, that's for sure.

Before I can respond, however, Serana says: "Nope. Never heard of you."

"I can't say that I'm surprised by your answer. Until I get my second volume finished, no-one will ever know my achievements."

"You're talking about a book?" I ask.

"A book?!" Jiub splutters. "I'd hardly call a twenty-six volume epic simply a 'book'! Surely you've heard of 'The Rise and Fall of Saint Jiub the Eradicator: Hero of Morrowind and Saviour of the Dunmer'?"

I'm pretty sure the title of 'Hero of Morrowind and Saviour of the Dunmer' belongs to the Nerevarine, but I'll let him have his little 'thing'.

"How is your work going so far?" I question him. None too well, from what I gather.

"Terrible, simply terrible." He replies. I was in the midst of writing the second volume and they just threw me into the prison. It's unfair!"

"Who threw you in here?"

"That damn Dremora and his minions. They didn't even give me a chance to explain who I was."

"A Dremora captured you?" Strange. I don't remember any recent cases of rampant Dremora.

"Well, I assume so." Jiub growls. "It cast a spell at me from some kind of strange black crystal. Next thing I knew, I arrived here."

"Your soul was trapped." I mournfully inform him.

"My what? Wait… that means…"

"You're dead."

"No! All these wasted months… or has it been years? I don't even remember how much time has passed. Now my work will never see the light of day. My name will be forgotten!" "I guess he doesn't know about the statue of him that stood in Vivec until Baar Dau finished its fall onto the city, causing the cataclysm that named the Red Year. I'm sure they still remember him, even almost 200 years since then.

"Could I help?"

"Perhaps. Do you have a way out of here?"

"I do, but you can't leave that way."

"Maybe I can't leave, but my writings can. In order to write the second volume of my opus, I need the notes from my first volume. Otherwise, I need to do all of this from memory."

"How many pages did you lose?" I hope it's not too many, or I'd be here forever. I already want to leave – this will probably have to be one of those things I come back to.

"When I was tossed in here, I felt myself falling… and I dropped the pages I had been holding. There were ten of them in all. Find them for me, please, I beg you!"

"Why would a Dremora attack you?" I want to know more.

"Well, that's a ridiculous question. Everyone travelling through here has said that the Oblivion Gates have been opening all over Tamriel." Wait, that long ago?! By the Nine, that wasn't that long after he left Morrowind!

"That was… a bit before my time." I do remember it, though vaguely.

"Has it been that long? Oh my. Well, it started with the followers of Mehrunes Dagon having Emperor Uriel Septim VII assassinated. Without a Septim on the throne of the Empire, Dagon was able to leave Oblivion through the gates and attack."

"Why was Dagon able to do this?" Serana asks behind me.

"All I heard is that without a Septim sitting on the throne of the Empire, the Dragonfires in a place called the Temple of the One were no longer lit. This meant that we were all vulnerable to the forces of Oblivion."

"What ended up happening?" Serana continues her questions.

"Well, I don't know. Everything seemed fine until that Dremora attacked me. I only heard later about the gates from the other souls. I can only assume the gates have been closed by now."

"Where were you captured?" I interrupt Serana – I'll explain what happened as we travel. My family got quite a detailed account of what happened in Cyrodiil during the Oblivion Crisis from Cousin.

"I had just moved from my ancestral home in Morrowind to the continent, to Cyrodiil. I settled in the city of Kvatch to write my memoirs and to find some peace and quiet."

Ah. Oh dear. "Is that where you were attacked?"

"Indeed! One moment I was writing diligently, and the next my door bursts open. It was a cadre of Dremora. The city was under attack. I took it upon myself to join the cause and fight the Dremora, thinking this would simply be another feather in my cap."

"Didn't work out that way, I assume."

"The reason I'm standing in front of you as only a whisper of my former self should tell you that. I never knew what became of Kvatch. I wonder if they were triumphant without me…" Well, yes, they were… eventually. Not before the whole city was destroyed and the Count killed though.

I'm starting to feel tired now, and despite not wanting to camp here, I think we have to. I need to sleep to keep up my strength, even if Serana doesn't. Informing the vampire that I'll explain everything tomorrow, I settle down as best I can at Jiub's campsite.


	13. Durnehviir's request

As we head onwards the next day – I assume it's the next day, at least – I tell Serana everything I know about Dagoth Ur's return and the Nerevarine, the Oblivion Crisis, and everything I know about what has happened since, including the return of the dragons. She takes it all in without even blinking. Amazing – not many people would be so believing.

We soon reach the next tower with its Keeper sat on its stone throne at the foot. On our approach, the headless figure rises and pulls out a massive battleaxe, made out of the same material as its armour. Working together, Serana and I fight to slay the thing and to stay well out of reach of the great weapon. A good many arrows and icicles later the Keeper is merely a pile of black sludge like the one before it, and I am searching the skyline for our last target. I spot it in the distance, and swinging my arms to loosen some of the tension from the fight I lead Serana towards it.

Not far from the second tower we reach a dark stone platform with a tall black pole at one end, a metal cup sitting before it. Curious, I walk up to the rod and examine it. The cup seems to be of the sort I've seen used to contain soul gems, so as an experiment I place one inside.

Suddenly, with a blinding light and an incredibly loud bang, the rod is struck repeatedly by the lightning which has been constantly blasting throughout the Soul Cairn, and I am thrown several feet backwards, eye stinging and ears ringing. Once I can see again, I return to where I stood before to find the rod is gone and in the place of the ordinary soul gem is a black one, used to hold the souls of sentient beings – used for pure necromancy. I don't think I'll be playing with any other lightning rods I find in this place…

Continuing on our journey, I find myself deep in thought. Many ignorant Cyrodiils throughout the years have assumed that we Dunmer were necromancers because of our ancestor worship, but it is only in the very rare cases that they are right. In actuality, a Dunmer necromancer is much rarer than one of another race. The soul of a living being is sacred, not to be used in any way. Yes, you'll find ghosts of Dunmer ancestors roaming many a tomb in Morrowind, but that is because they are willingly safeguarding the remains of their family, not because they are being forced to by some foolish mage. That being said, I remember Cousin mentioning in one of his letters being asked by a Dark Elven alchemist in Skingrad what the fine for necrophilia was! That caused much commotion when Mother read the letter to us – grandmother said 'what do you expect from a Hlaalu?' and started a loud argument that nearly got the town guard – who, Balmora being a Hlaalu town, were Hlaalu retainers – called in to calm us down!

I am dragged out of my reverie by an arrow slamming into my side. I swear that hurt more than usual… I turn towards the source to find Serana has already dealt with the problem, and I can't help but feel a little disappointed that I missed out. Readying a healing spell, I grit my teeth and yank the arrow out, being careful to pull in the exact opposite direction to its entry into my flesh. Immediately casting the spell, I lose very little blood; I can't help but notice, however, Serana's slightly regretful face as the liquid soaks into the grey sand. Of course – she hasn't fed since her brief stay at Castle Volkihar, if at all since I found her. Another problem to deal with when I can, I suppose. But how?

A little ahead of us I can see an altar of some sort, so I head over to investigate. Upon the stone platform the metal altar sits on is a spell book, which, when I open it, teaches me a spell to summon a boneman of my own to fight for me. No sooner has the book dissolved from my hands than we are attacked again by a gang of bonemen. Since these skeletal creatures seem to be rather weak, it looks like my new conjuration spell will stay unused.

We soon reach the last tower, sat in the middle of a sprawling open ruin. This Keeper is surrounded by bonemen, so I leave them to Serana while I attack the Keeper. After around a quarter of an hour of fighting, all that is left of our foes are the little black puddles. It's strange – despite the Keeper being much larger than his supporting minions, all the puddles are the same size. I'd have thought the Keeper's would be bigger.

Judging by the directions we've been travelling in, Valerica's prison is somewhere east of us, so I head off in that direction. As we pass south of Jiub's camp, at the foot of a glowing well of some sort in the centre of a large stone platform, I spot a sheet of paper lying on the ground. Picking it up, I see it is covered in a neat scrawl.

_and the silt strider bouncing me around at full gallop. Finally, with a silent prayer, I released the string. The arrow sang through the air like a howling demon as it sliced its way towards its target. Finally, just as it crested the lip of a foyada, the arrow struck it in the midsection. It let out a horrible cry and fell out of sight. My cries of triumph were_

I guess this must be a page from Jiub's first volume. I tuck it into my bag and continue eastwards. We're soon back at the ruin where Valerica was held, and I climb the steps to find the barrier has gone.

"You managed to destroy all three Keepers? Very impressive." The elder vampire says.

"Are you able to give us the scroll now?" I ask.

"Yes, please, follow me. Keep watch for Durnehviir. With the prison's barrier down, he's almost certain to investigate."

We follow Valerica into the building, to find that it is merely a wall around a large courtyard. There is an alcove in the western wall with an alchemy lab and several bottles and ingredients sitting on a shelf. Valerica is leading us towards it when Serana pauses.

"Wait…" She cautions. "I hear something!"

I look up just in time to see a great slime-green dragon sail over the wall and glide around to start attacking us. He Shouts something, and a group of bonemen appear out of nowhere and attack us as well. I leave them to the vampires, focussing on Durnehviir.

"Joor Zah Frul!" I Shout at the beast, and he flies straight into the path of the blue dragon-magic, causing him to recoil and forcing him to land. Since my bow is already in my hand, I ignore Dragonbane and shoot arrow upon arrow at the dragon, most bouncing off of the green scales or batted away by the creature's great curved horns. The lucky few that strike the soft flesh, however, seem to do damage enough, and eventually Durnehviir lies defeated and his summoned minions disappear.

I am waiting for his soul to come cascading out towards me, and I can't help but feel disappointed when instead the corpse vanishes in a purple cloud. I turn around at the sound of soft footsteps.

Forgive my astonishment, but I never thought I'd witness the death of that dragon." Valerica says.

"What makes you say that?" Serana says beside her.

"Volumes written on Durnehviir allege that he can't be slain by normal means." Normal means? I wouldn't call yelling at a beast until it falls 'normal'. "It appears they were mistaken. Unless…" Valerica trails off.

"Go on." I urge her.

"The soul of a dragon is as resilient as its owner's scaly hide. It's possible that your killing blow has merely displaced Durnehviir's physical form while he reconstitutes himself." She explains.

"How long will that take?"

"Minutes? Hours? Years?" Valerica suggests. "I can't even begin to guess. I suggest we don't wait around and find out. Now, let's get you the Elder Scroll and you can be on your way."

In the alcove, on the shelf with the ingredients, is a long box, inside which is the scroll we need, encased in its golden sheath. Carefully tucking it into my satchel, I turn back to the now released vampire.

"Now that you've retrieved the Elder Scroll, you should be on your way." She says. "If there's anything I can do before you depart, just let me know."

Hmm. Since she knows so much about the Soul Cairn…

"Can you help me get my soul back?"

"So, my daughter applied some of the lessons I taught her about necromancy, did she?" She sounds proud. But then, so would any teacher upon learning of a student putting their teaching to good use. "Don't worry; I think I can help you."

"Good – I could use all the help I can get."

"Your soul essence was trapped inside a gem. When you and Serana entered the Soul Cairn, it was 'given' to the Ideal Masters as payment. You simply need to retrieve the gem. The moment you touch it, your soul essence will be restored."

"Any idea where it could be?" I ask.

"There's an offering alter not terribly far from here. I'm willing to bet that the gem you're looking for is there. Is there anything else? Could be your last chance."

"You're staying here?" Serana asks, a tinge of sadness in her voice.

"I have no choice. As I told you I am a daughter of Coldharbour. If I return to Tamriel, that increases Harkon's likelihood of bringing the Tyranny of the Sun to fruition."

"We'll return for you when we can." I promise.

"I appreciate your concern for me, but Serana is all that I care about. You must keep her safe at all costs. Remember that Harkon is not to be trusted. No matter what he promises, he'll deceive you in order to get what he wants. And promise me you'll keep my daughter safe. She's the only thing of value I have left."

I bow my head in assent, then leave the building with Serana. To get a rather nasty surprise outside.

Waiting atop a black stone archway over the track is Durnehviir.

"Stay your weapons!" He cries in a deep growl when he sees us. "I would speak with you, Qahnaarin."

Qahnaarin? "I thought you were dead."

"Cursed, not dead. Doomed to exist in this form for eternity. Trapped between laas and dinok, between life and death." The great dragon laments.

"Why are we speaking?"

"I believe in civility between seasoned warriors, and I find your ear worthy of my words. My claws have rended the flesh of innumerable foes, but I have never once been felled on the field of battle. I therefore honour-name you Qahnaarin, or Vanquisher, in your tongue."

"I found you equally worthy." Always worth flattering a dragon – especially if it means you are no longer dinner!

"Your words do me great honour." Durnehviir bows his head slightly, then continues. "My desire to speak with you was born from the result of our battle, Qahnaarin. I merely wish to respectfully ask a favour of you."

"What kind of a favour?" I query.

"For countless years I've roamed the Soul Cairn in unintended service to the Ideal Masters. Before this, I roamed the skies of Tamriel. I desire to return there."

"What's stopping you?"

"I fear that my time here has taken its toll upon me. I share a bond with this dreaded place. If I ventured far from the Soul Cairn, my strength would begin to wane until I was no more."

"How can I help?" I am not exactly eager to unleash another dragon on Skyrim, but… I did beat him once; I can again if I must.

"I will place my name with you and grant you the right to call my name from Tamriel. Do me this simple honour and I will fight at your side as your Grah-Zeymahzin, your ally, and teach you my Thu'um." Well, a dragon fighting for me… tempting.

"Just call your name in Tamriel? That's it?"

"Trivial in your mind, perhaps." Durnehviir responds. For me, it would mean a great deal. I don't require an answer, Qahnaarin. Simply speak my name to the heavens when you feel the time is right." With a great heave, the dragon takes to the air and glides away.

Since Valerica didn't tell me exactly where this shrine thing was, I again let my intuition guide me. Heading more north than west, we come across a great maze-like ruin. Exploring the inside, we are occasionally attacked by bonemen, but they last about as long as a gambler's pay. Eventually, we find a teleport well, and I jump onto it and am transported onto the roof of the ruin.

Beneath a giant soul gem sits a chest, and something resonates inside me. The gem I seek is in that chest, I know it. When I approach it, though, the huge gem starts sucking out my life force. Stubbornly I push open the chest and reach inside, pulling out the gem and restoring my soul to its proper vessel – my body.

I jog away from the enormous crystal, and the leeching sensation stops. Since there is no well to get back down easily, and the ruins aren't that tall, I drop down over the edge and am met by Serana, who didn't come up with me. I head south west, trying to find the trail back to the stairway to the portal, and soon encounter it. A small distance along, we meet the soul of Arvak's owner. I pull the skull out of my bag and show it to the worried spirit.

"Arvak!" he cries gratefully. "You saved him! His soul is free, I can feel it! He's such a loyal beast. Here, I'll teach you how to call him to you. He'll help you get around this wretched place, but I'm sure he'd be happier someplace sunnier. Goodbye, hero! Take good care of Arvak for me. Such a good horse…" The soul fades away, wearing the happiest grin I've ever seen from a grown person, living or dead.

I don't think I'd be getting much use out of the new spell any time soon though – were I to ride I'd end up leaving Serana far behind and I am unwilling to ride off on my friends. Wow – I suddenly realise I have made the first friends I've had since I was in my second century of life during these recent adventures. I hadn't noticed how lonely I'd been…

Near the great dividing wall, I spot another page sitting on a barrel near a soul hanging around a broken cart. I pick it up and read it.

_about to strike me down in anger for my somewhat sordid past? Suddenly I understood everything. Suddenly I realised that I was brought here for a reason. I should have died in those ash wastes, but Lord Vivec must have seen something inside me that he hadn't seen in millennia and decided to spare me from my fate. Thus began my ascent to Sainthood. Thus began the rise of Jiub!_

Must be the last page. Considering the size of Jiub's ego, I'm almost surprised I was able to get close enough to talk to him! I tuck it in my bag and continue on through the wall, along the path past many other trapped souls and up the stairs through the portal into Valerica's secret study.

The passages of the tower ruins are silent; the remaining gargoyles, thankfully, are purely ornamental. Passing the door I'd unlocked then ignored, I detour and explore the room beyond, only to find the only loot inside a couple of enchanted weapons. Stuffing them in my bag – I still marvel at how the little thing can hold so much sometimes – I return to the passages and follow them all the way back to the courtyard.

The undercroft is silent too, the only sound to be heard in the place the dripping of water onto the stones from the slimy ceiling. Back outside at the hidden docks, we scramble over the rocks back towards the entrance ramp to the castle and manage to get to the boat and away without being stopped by anyone. We seem to have gone unnoticed, which surprises me – I'm sure Harkon would be searching for Serana by now, considering she escaped with her scroll.

Back at the mainland, we head east, following the coastline a short way until I find a trail heading towards where I assume the road to me. The track, however, turns back west, so I abandon it and return to my eastern course, pausing only to slay a trio of attacking wolves. Poor, starving, foolish creatures.

We do eventually reach the road at around the same time as the sun disappears below the horizon. Nodding to a Khajiit who is hanging around near the road, we head along the cobbles, around the rocky cliffs and below the massive arch that Solitude sits upon. I am yearning for a real bed, so I take Serana into the city via the windmill door and head into the Winking Skeever. Renting the room, Serana settles into the chair beside the bed, and I sink exhausted into the mattress.


	14. Frustration

By the Nine, is it good to sleep in a real bed! Despite getting to the inn after dark and waking just before dawn, I feel more rested than I have in days. Serana seems rested to – vampires do sleep after all, then. What to do about the blood problem though? I guess animal blood would do… I ask her about it as we leave the inn, quietly so no-one overhears, and she seems ok with it.

Trotting down the road to the morning chorus of insects, I decide to see how many ingredients I can gather before we reach Riften, so I slow beside every plant to pick a blossom, or flail around like a cat after a toy trying to catch butterflies and other flittering insects. Serana looks at me askance, but says nary a word, for which I am thankful – if embarrassed. I must be quite the sight, chasing bugs down the cliff-side road. We take the road around Dragon Bridge, then turn into Hjaalmarch on the other side of the river. The insects fell quiet as we passed beneath the stone dragon head over the bridge, and I am thankful for it – my ears still ring as though they continue their incessant chirping.

Our quiet journey is interrupted by a thief, who wasn't making the best effort at hiding and whose hold-up lines are the same as the other unfortunates before her. Sensing an opportunity, I slay the thief without too much blood spilt by either party, then quickly glance awkwardly at Serana, unsure how to explain my idea to her.

Luckily, she understands what I mean from just that, and I can't help but look away as she drains the lifeless corpse; casting a spell first that starts the blood flowing again. A little while later, she straightens, wiping her mouth delicately on her crimson cuff, and we continue our trek along the snowy road. That should hopefully satisfy her for the next short while. At least this solution means she doesn't need to feed on innocent people.

This reminds me for some reason – I have a daedra heart in my bag from the lab, and the Orcs at the giant-attacked compound did ask me for one. I'll have to remember to save it for them.

We pass no-one until we are well past Morthal, where we meet a trio of Thalmor, one trailing far behind the others. Trying not to scowl at the stuck up excuses-for-elves is more difficult than I thought, so instead I merely watch the countryside pass on the other side of the road from them as we jog by.

Near Stonehills mine, we dodge the angry attention of a bear growling at us from the wilderness then, a bit further on, duck around a wandering courier to head south where the snowy cobblestones meet the road to Dawnstar. A couple of nearby Vigilants watch us pass them suspiciously, and the Imperials at Fort Dunstad are, of course, unhappy to find that people actually use the road passing through their fort, turning my sympathies further towards the Stormcloaks. Pompous idiots – what did they expect to happen when they occupy a fort across a major highway? Was all commerce from the south and the east supposed to just stop? Their stupidity surprises me every time I have cause to use this road.

Turning south again along the road into Whiterun, we pass the still-stranded jester with his broken cart. If I knew how, I'd fix the wagon myself – Loreius obviously isn't going to. Near the city, we pass a farmer with a cow, then turn along the east road across the river. Valtheim is still silent, as is the road, until we pass a farmer who mentions joining the Legion as he passes. I avoid meeting his eyes – if I do join the Stormcloaks, I don't want to recognise any of my kills. Gods, what if I met Hadvar? Did he make it out of Helgen alive? Great, now I feel bad.

A couple of miles further on, a Breton mage leaps out of nowhere just behind a fireball cast towards us. What is it with these people and trying to kill us? Do they do it for fun? Do they really want to die that much? Because that is what always ends up happening. Not one of these drunken or crazy people has survived me. At least they go out fighting.

Across a high bridge crossing the waterfalls, I spot a vein of iron, so to calm myself I pull out my pickaxe and hack away at it. I really need to stop working myself up, or I'll snap and probably end up in the same ways as I was before I came to Skyrim, and there is no way in all the planes that I want to go back to that. Well, maybe not _all_ the planes… no! Never again; never!

Ugh – mining obviously isn't as calming as I usually find it, so I gather the ore I'd cut away from the stone and continue up the steep road. I clear my mind and instead focus on the scenery; on breathing the clean, cool air and on putting one foot in front of the other. Soon, I'm in a better state of mind, and not even a passing Redguard calling me a milk-drinker – how is that an insult, anyway? – makes me even twitch. My teacher would be proud; she was the one who taught me this method in the first place, and the one who got the most annoyed when I couldn't seem to get the hang of it! At first, anyway – I eventually managed it, but the use I put it to later on… I'm not proud of that, and I doubt she would be either.

I soon realise I must have taken a wrong turn somewhere, as I don't quite recognise where we are; soon though it all comes clear, and I take the next joining road, taking up further up the cliff. I nod to the guards as we enter Shor's Stone, the smith's hammer ringing through the afternoon haze. I use the smelter outside the mine to melt down the ore I'd mined into ingots – I can use it to improve any iron weapons I have, unless I meet a merchant first – then continue down the road, through an empty Fort Greenwall and up the road towards Riften. Outside the city, a Khajiit caravan has set up camp, so I sell the ingots to them along with the many ingredients and other oddments I'd collected since I last encountered as shop. The amount of oddments turns out to be a large one, and the poor cat runs out of coin to pay me with, but she doesn't seem to mind – she assures me he can make it all back before I next meet them, so I take what she offers and let her have the rest of the stuff for free. She grins, sharp teeth glinting through her whiskers, and she is delighted, saying she can think of many people who have a need of such things, and we take our leave with a cordial invitation to come back again soon.

Trekking through the wilderness towards the road to Cyrodiil, I briefly wonder how people can suspect the jovial creatures of theft and other illegal activities, but then I realise that their eagerness to deal with people and other merchants is most likely the cause of such suspicion. As well as the Nord's almost-instinctual racism, that is.

Ducking into the canyon, we haven't travelled far along the track when we encounter two vampires taking advantage of the recently-set sun to scout out the defences, and we take them by surprise, attacking from behind and dealing a good bit of damage before they recover enough to fight back. One casts some sort of spell at me, but I ignore it and slash heavily at her, slicing clean through her arm and her throat in one cut. Once the battle is over, though, the odd feeling that had come across me when the spell was cast fails to dissipate, and it still lingers when we reach the great doors of the fort, so I chug one of the 'cure disease' potions from my pack and the queasiness finally fades. I think I just dodged a bloody bolt there…

Heading towards the forge, I find Sorine working hard at the grindstone – thinking of bolts has reminded me of the critical shortage of them I currently suffer. Gunmar is nearby, so I buy out both of their stock of bolts, alongside a spell book for a spell called 'Sun Fire' that catches my eye, and turn to find a bunk. Sorine catches my arm as I turn.

"Do you have a moment?" She asks me, and I turn back. "Gunmar and I have been talking and, well, we're slightly worried. We both realised that if Isran's even allowed us in here, he must be really concerned. And if he's that concerned, the situation must be pretty bad. Make sense?"

"You're worried about what we're up against?" Behind her, Gunmar is too busy feeding his trolls, in a new pen near the forge, to join the conversation.

"Yes. These vampires are a new threat, and a truly deadly one. Gunmar and I agree that we're going to need Florentius to help. Gunmar and I have a lot of work to do here, so we're hoping that maybe you could track him down."

"Where can I find him?"

"Well, that's the thing. We don't know where he is." Sorine gives me an apologetic grin. "Haven't seen him in years. I think he had regular contact with the Vigilants, and I know Isran kept track of them… so maybe you could ask Isran if he knows anything? Just keep in mind that he… well, he might not like the idea."

Great. I promise I'll do my best, then head into the barrack room and fall into a bunk, staying awake just long enough to learn the new spell.


	15. Ruunvald

The next morning I climb up the spiral staircase up to the second floor to talk to Isran. I find him in his room, still asleep. I don't think he'll like me for waking him up…

"I knew it would come to this one day." He says, rising from his bed. "I knew, and no-one believed."

"I need to find someone named Florentius." I tell him.

"Who said something, Sorine or Gunmar? I thought they'd have learned their lesson by now. I don't trust that man, and I don't want him here."

"Sorine thought we'd need his help." I explain, hoping that he doesn't prove too stubborn in this.

"I suppose she's right. I shouldn't let my personal feelings get in the way." He concedes. "Last I'd heard of him, he was aiding the Vigilants of Stendarr at Ruunvald. He may still be there. If he can maintain some appearance of normalcy, I'll allow him to stay."

As he turns away, I head downstairs again and search out Dexion. I find him hanging around the forge. He seems to be wearing something over his eyes.

"I trust your journey was successful?" He asks when I get his attention.

"I've brought the Elder Scrolls." I tell him.

"I'm sorry, my friend. I can no longer be of use in this matter."

"Why? What's happened?"

"It's my fault. In my haste to read the first scroll, I neglected the careful preparation required." He shrugs a little sadly. "I thought I'd be able to allay the after effects, but I was wrong. Now I'm paying for it."

"That covering on your eyes… Are you –"

"Blind?" Dexion finishes for me. "I'm afraid so."

"Can anything be done to help you?"

"No. It'll have to run its course, and there's always the chance I may never recover."

"Then we're finished." I guess Harkon wins.

"No; there is another way. The question is, how much are you willing to risk to find Auriel's Bow?"

"What do I need to do?"

"I can't guarantee you'd be free from harm. Becoming blind could be the least of your worries." Well, I've managed fine with only one eye for 196 years; if it's only temporary, I could cope with a few days away from all this adventuring.

"Don't worry about that; just tell me."

"Scattered across Tamriel are secluded locations known only as 'Ancestor Glades'. There's one in Skyrim, in the Pine Forest." That's Falkreath, right? "Performing the Ritual of the Ancestor Moth within the Glade should provide you the answers you seek."

"Explain this 'Ritual'"

"It involves carefully removing the bark from a Canticle Tree which will in turn attract Ancestor Moths to you. Once enough of the Moths are following, they'll provide you with the second sight needed to decipher the scrolls."

"Carefully gather the bark? How?" I ask.

"In keeping with tradition," Dexion begins. "you must use a specific tool in the Ancestor Glade, an implement known as a Draw Knife. Every Moth Priest is taught this ritual, but few ever get the chance to perform it… you should consider yourself fortunate if it works for you."

"Do I need to read the scrolls in any particular order?"

"From what I saw in the vision, the Elder Scroll which foreshadows the defiance of the gods with the blood of mortals is the key to the prophecy. Good luck; I hope you find the answers you seek."

Ok, I think I'll get Florentius first, then head off to this Glade. I check my map and eventually find where Isran had marked Ruunvald – up in the foothills of the Velothi Mountains opposite Shor's Stone. I head out of the door and into the fresh canyon air.

Following the trail, I marvel at just how much wildlife has set up home here, and how tame they seem to be compared to those outside of it. The deer here hardly move when you pass them, and I almost trip over a rabbit at one point.

Leaving the canyon, we are greeted by a trio of vampires who prove to be a bit of a challenge to hit since they are moving around so much they avoid most of Serana's attacks and quite a few of my bolts. We soon manage to defeat them though, and carry on up the road – until a pair of bandits in a nearby ruined tower take offence at our passing. Dealing with them is easier than the vampires were – they barely withstand one bolt each.

Around Riften to the north, we follow the road a little way until we find a track leading into the woodland in the general direction we need to be heading in. The track, however, steadily turns back towards the road, so after a little while we end up trekking cross-country, passing a caged wolf as we go. A pair are loose nearby, and they seem to assume we are the ones who caught their brother, so they attack us with barely a pause. Poor creatures have barely enough time to blink before they are dead at our feet.

Looking up into the mountains towards where our destination supposedly is, I spot what looks like the top of a peaked tent a little way up among the rocks, so I carefully scramble up the rocks to find that it is a tent, inside which is an empty bedroll, a pair of boots, and a journal, which I flick through to discover what happened.

_Day 14: I knew I should have volunteered for the excavation earlier. For months, Moric had been going on to the Vigilants about detecting mystical energies deep in the east mountains. Said he'd found some old tomes about the ruins of 'Ruunvald' or something the like, a Nordic chamber thousands of years old. I remember thinking 'Yeah, if it's so old, how come no-one's found it yet? There's plenty of adventurers wandering around these parts.' Seemed like most of the other Vigilants agreed, we had more important things to do. But Moric took a team and went digging, and when he started turning up a long buried temple, well, didn't I feel like a troll in a dung heap. Soon enough he was sending back letters to the Hall, begging for as many men as we could send. I didn't volunteer at first, still seemed like a myth to me. But when word came back that they'd hit the main chamber, I packed up and headed this way to help. Always did want to be a part of history, and better late than never, they say. Well, 'they' didn't mention that the late comers would be stuck with guard duty. I just sit up here all day watching for bandits and wolves, neither of which I've seen. Mostly, I just see diggers coming up for supplies. Gotta say, I been seeing them a lot less regular, now that I think about it… _that doesn't bode well. Let's see what the last entry says.

_Day 19: All right, it's been 3 days since anyone's come up. The last one to emerge was Apa, and he just walked around a bit with a weird vacant look in his eyes. Told Florentius and me to come down as soon as we had the chance, then trudged back in. Something ain't right, and I aims to find out what… - Volk._

So it looks like we'll be trawling through the ruins searching for Florentius then. At least there shouldn't be any monsters inside.

Pushing open the wooden door set up in the cave entrance, I follow the short passage into a large cave, wooden ramps lead down to the floor quite a distance below. I can see somewhere ahead a Vigilant, so I start down the ramp, but stop a little short of the robed figure. Something isn't quite right about the red aura surrounding the person's head…

I pull out my crossbow just in time, as the Vigilant, upon spotting Serana and I, draws his mace and starts speeding towards us, an angry snarl distorting his face. Regretfully, I release the bolt and it drives deep into his chest. He falls just in time to reveal another Vigilant, this one aiming her own crossbow at us, but Serana kills her before she has the chance to pull the trigger.

So. Something in this ruin has possessed the Vigilants. As if the poor people haven't been through enough recently without this sort of thing happening. I descend to the floor of the cave and search around the area, mining the malachite vein I find before reading a journal I found nearby.

_Discovering Ruunvald, volume I: I have decided to document our expedition to find Ruunvald in my journals, with hopes that, should we fail, it will bring illumination to those who follow us. I myself have stood on the shoulders of academic giants to get where we are today, spending endless hours in libraries and private collections. I am certain that there is some artefact of great power to be found in those ruins, one that the Vigilants could find useful in their mission. I do not mean to sound pompous, but I feel as if I am on the precipice of my destiny with this quest. I am certain we are digging in the right place. I can feel it in my bones, and I dream of finding Ruunvald at night. Even in my waking hours, I can almost hear a reassuring voice telling me we are going the right way. The expedition has had a great deal of luck so far. After only a few weeks, the first tunnel broke through into a large shaft, leading downward towards where I suspect to find Ruunvald. With just a few bits of carpentry, we've established our first base camp within the mountains. If we continue to be this fortuitous, we shall reach our goal in record time! M. Sidrey._

The author of this must be the Moric referred to by Volk in his diary. I tuck the book away into my bag and return back up the ramp a little to get to the passage deeper into the rock. At a place where the tunnel turns a corner, a little camp has been set up, and another pair of charmed Vigilants are lingering around. I don't take the chance this time, choosing to slay them before they attack in their magically addled state. In the corner camp, there are a couple of potions and another malachite vein, which I exploit before I continue.

In the next major cave area, there are yet another two Vigilants, as well as a dog which seems to be under the charm as well, which saddens me – I hate having to kill dogs. They're only doing what they've been trained to do, usually. Once they lie dead on the floor, I search around the cave, finding yet another ore vein and another little book, this one titled 'Discovering Ruunvald, volume II'.

_Our luck continues! Not only do we continue to tunnel into caves and shafts that speed our descent, but struck multiple veins of precious ore. Now that the excavation has proven to be a financial success, the Vigilants have sent more supplies, materials and workers to further the cause. I find myself unable to contain my glee at times, and have become prone to cheerful outbursts in front of the men. One might find this very out of character for me, but the men seem to share my enthusiasm. Never before have I worked with a group so single-minded in their pursuit. To have so many people working towards the same goal with little to no deviation from the task at hand is an uncanny blessing! Stendarr be praised! With so much going well, I hesitate to document what seem like minor troubles in comparison. It must have something to do with the cramped spaces, but I have found myself prone to aches in my head. While these hardly deter me from my leadership role, I have found myself distracted at times. I have had many a conversation with the workers where I drift off, only to have them call me back to reality. Sometimes I lose small amounts of time and can't remember what I've done. I am hoping this is nothing more than excitement of reaching our goal, but I will try to keep note as we dig deeper. Perhaps half a tankard of ale before sleep will help me with these headaches. M. Sidrey._

Something seriously messed up went on or is going on down here. I put the journal with the other, and continue down the next tunnel. We're about halfway down when we find another Vigilant and a dog, both of whom spot us first and attack. I am really not liking this particular 'dungeon crawl'; having to kill Vigilants and dogs that, if everything were normal, would probably not even be here. When I find whoever did this…

There is a single Vigilant patrolling the next cave we enter, along with another ore vein and volume three of the Ruunvald notes.

_The damnable headaches! Minorne be merciful, I just can't seem to shake them._ What in Oblivion? _The workers have started to report them as well, but while their focus on conversation and civility may wane because of it, they have not swayed from their task. If anything, they seem to have doubled their efforts. I myself cannot seem to focus on anything other than the dig. I sit here now, studying some unearthed Nordic artefacts, yet I feel a nagging call to see how the dig is progressing. The other day, without thinking, I picked up a shovel and started digging myself. Fortunately, no-one seemed to find this unusual, which is a blessing. I'd hate for the Vigilants of Minorne to think that I'd lost my senses! _I think I know now who's to blame for the Vigilants' strange behaviour… _As we dig, we uncover more Nordic ruins and architecture, but have yet to hit the main chamber. Everyday I dream we'll finally reach Ruunvald, and I can't help but reflect on what this will mean to my reputation! My family will be so proud, especially my father, Minorne. He and mother have always been interested in my studies, even if my sister Minorne was not. But I'm most excited to reveal my findings to my colleagues, Minorne and Minorne, and perhaps my mentor Minorne. Oh won't they all be pleased? M. Sidrey._

Down the next passage, I find an area strewn with pressure plates, so telling Serana to stay put for a sec, I dodge around them until I find crossbows set up to go off when the plate is stepped on, two atop barrels and one strapped to the ceiling. Disarming them is easy – a simple matter of removing the crossbows – and I gesture at Serana as I chuck them in a barrel, then mine the nearby malachite and almost trot down the next part of the tunnel, I'm so eager to kill the son-of-a-guar that caused this. And almost crash into the next couple of Vigilants with their dog. At least their recoil gives me a little time to ready myself for attack. I leave the dog to Serana to deal with, and focus myself on the Vigilants. Thankfully they are easy to kill, the poor fellows, and so leaving them behind I head into the fourth cave in the system. There are another couple of Vigilants down at the bottom, so after sniping them I head down and find the fourth volume of Ruunvald notes. These are extremely ominous indeed.

_I have found my muse and her name is Minorne. Reading back over old journals, I realise she has called to me from deep inside Ruunvald. She is the voice I've been hearing, the one who has called me ever downwards into the mountain. The Vigilants, the workers, they hear her too! What joy to learn that I am not alone in her love! Oh, Minorne, how would we have ever found this place without you! As I write this we are digging out the last bit of rock to get to you. Those without tools have started using their hands! I cannot write anymore, I must get back to work. Ruunvald awaits! M. Sidrey._

Whoever this Minorne character is, she is going to pay dearly for this; for making me kill so many of the Vigilants who now have no home to go back to, thanks to the vampires of Volkihar. Serana catches up behind me, having taken her time descending the ramp, and together we pass through a pair of iron bound doors into the buried ruins of Ruunvald.

Following the passage, I find yet another little notebook, this one titled 'The Scripture of Minorne'.

_Glory be to Minorne! Glory be to the mistress of all! My life for you, oh beautiful saviour! Where once my feeble ramblings seemed so grand, I now realise they are but scratches on parchment, unworthy of you. Oh, that I could properly describe you, I would write a thousand testaments to you! Damn my tiny thoughts, if only I were wiser! Minorne asks that we bring more here for her, more to worship her and do her bidding! I have sent word to the Hall of the Vigilants to come. A simple lie was told, for they would not understand. Not until they saw her, o glorious Minorne! But she is fearful! There are fools in this world that do not heed to her beautiful voice. The guard, Florentius, sent from the Beacon, he still prays to Arkay, an absentee god who pales in comparison to Minorne! I will prat to the goddess I can see! May he rot in his cage! Oh, sweet, sweet Minorne…_ Unlike the other books, this one is not signed, but the handwriting is Sidrey's.

Continuing down the passage, we enter the main chamber, where two Vigilants are attacking a man in a cage – that must be Florentius – while a robed woman watches. Assuming the woman is Minorne, I raise my crossbow and send a bolt flying into her stomach, throwing her back a couple of feet and causing the charmed Vigilants to pause in their torture. The next bolt is enough to finish her, and the pair of men also fall dead. At least now she can charm no others. I rummage in her pocket and find a key, and while tucking her staff into my bag, I use the key to unlock the cage.

"I knew it!" Cries the dark skinned man inside. "I knew Arkay would save me!" Excuse me? "I asked for help, and he sent you! You are a very welcome addition to this dreary place, my friend! I owe both you and Arkay a great deal. I'm sure I'll manage to repay him later, but you… what can I do to thank you?"

"You can meet me at Fort Dawnguard." I tell him.

"I suppose I could. What, pray tell, is there?"

"Isran needs your help."

"Isran? My help?" Florentius grimaces. "Is this… some kind of joke? Did Arkay put you up to this? Isran's done nothing but mock me. He's never given me the respect I deserve."

"Please; we need your help." I emphasise.

"Look, I've just gotten myself out of quite a mess here, in case you haven't noticed, and while I appreciate your help, I – What's that?" Wha..? "No, that's not what I – Yes, but –" Who is he talking to? "Are you sure? Really? Fine. Arkay says it's a good idea for me to go." Huh. "I don't agree, but he's not the sort of fellow you can just ignore. I'll see you at Fort Dawnguard, then. Don't worry; Arkay will show me the way."

So, a man who hears a god's voice in his head. I've worked with worse…

Leaving Florentius to recover from his ordeal, I use the key to unlock the door in the nearby wall and follow the passage through to a large room with a bed, a pair of urns and an alchemy lab inside, along with a large chest and a lever in an alcove. After emptying the chest, I head for the lab to try mixing up some more potions – the more I make, the more I'll have to sell and therefore the more money I'll make from the ingredients instead of selling them in their unused form. Once finished, I pull the lever, causing the circular platform in the centre of the room to rise up, revealing a staircase heading downwards.

At the bottom, a short flight of stairs lead straight ahead, up towards a door to the outside. Heading through this door, we emerge a little way south of the entrance and lower down the mountains. It's late afternoon, so I head westwards towards the road, then head south into Shor's Stone. Here, I decide to use the smelter to turn the malachite ore into ingots, and I use the forge to create several pairs of hide bracers. As I work, the sun sets, and the stars shine brilliantly from the black sky.

Following the road back south, we pass through Fort Greenwall and head up the road into Riften. It's too late now to sell my loot, so I head straight for the Bee and Barb and rent the room.


	16. The Reading of the Scrolls

I leave the city via the back gate and head along the road. The sun is just peeking over the mountains, and the birds are happy in the golden trees. We pass a mercenary near a farm just off the road, and a little further on we meet our first opponent of the day; a lone, foolish thief. He proves to be as weak as the others we've met, and so does the crazed Orc we encounter a short way on. I decide to run with my crossbow drawn, as it's actually quite difficult to draw and fire in one go.

Ducking around a wandering farmer at a crossroad, we take the left turn and jog down the road through more silver-barked trees. The insect noise has finally died down, and I can finally hear myself think. Not that I'm thinking much in the first place; I'm concentrating too much on keeping an eye on our surroundings so we're not taken by surprise.

My alertness pays off, as just as we pass through another crossroads, an angry bear rears up from a thicket near the road and starts lumbering towards us. I manage to get one shot off, and Serana finishes off the brute as I reload. These things may be slow, but they don't half pack a punch!

At the entrance to the pass through to Helgen, a pair of wolves try their luck against us, and fall short of their expectations. The nearby trio of Thalmor leading a prisoner don't even flinch when one of my shots flies wide and zips past their leader's face, tugging a hole in the edge of his hood. Luckily they don't seem to care about that either, and so we are able to pass them without any trouble.

A short way up the road, not even out of sight of the Thalmor, we meet a trio of Imperial soldiers, also guarding a prisoner. Dodging around them is a little difficult in the narrow pass, but we manage it with little fuss and continue on, past a hunter shooting at a fox. Her horse waits nearby, and it watches us as we leave the pass and take the trail around Helgen.

About halfway around, we are spotted by a bandit carrying a massive battleaxe, and he comes charging towards us. Aiming carefully, I pull the trigger of my crossbow, and the bolt slams into his face so hard he does a backflip before landing heavily on his back, dead.

Reaching the road again, I decide to detour to Riverwood for a short time to deposit some things in my borrowed chest and to sell the things I'd recently gathered and made. Taking the right turn at the end of the short approach to the ruined town, the cobbles peter out into a dirt track that winds down the cliffy mountainside and into the back of the small logging town.

Heading into the inn, Serana elects to stay in the common room while I head downstairs and drop the things I want to keep into the chest. Returning to the common room, I head out and go next door to the Trader to sell off the things I don't want to keep. A few minutes later, we're leaving the store, several pounds lighter and many septims richer. The sun hasn't yet reached its midday peak, and as we head back down the road south-eastwards, everything is quiet – until we pass a pair of wolves near the road.

I barely have time to raise my crossbow when Serana finishes them both off. Leaving them where they fell, I lead Serana up the road, taking the right turn where the road joins the lead up to Helgen and heading through a small patch of ruined stonework. Ahead of us, I spot a bear lingering on the edge of the road, so I decide to strike first and hit the beast square in the flank. I seem to be getting the hang of using a crossbow – my reload time is my quickest yet and the bear has barely closed half the distance before my second bolt slays it.

The road turns as it approaches the lake – Ilinalta, I think it's called – and follows the bank and the edge of the start of the pine forests of Falkreath Hold. That reminds me – I got a letter from the Jarl of Falkreath, didn't I? Something to look into when I can, I suppose.

A pair of wolves, seemingly overhearing my thoughts, decide that that is a bad idea and try to pose an argument against it, but their attempts at debate fail, and we leave them behind to the crows. Nodding to a hunter as we pass, we follow the road further into the hold and are surprised by a pair of skeletons from a nearby burial site. They're too close to even really bother with my crossbow, so ducking under the first's attack, I lash out with a strong kick and send the skeleton scattering across the grass towards the lake. Serana deals with the other just as swiftly and we carry on, taking the left turn deeper into the forest.

The sun, having reached its zenith, casts a brilliant light through the thick needles of the dense trees, and a little way ahead of us a young deer bursts out of the undergrowth and darts across the road. I glance at Serana, and she's wearing the same goofy grin I feel on my face. There's something so cheering about a quiet walk through peaceful woodland.

As we reach the road down into the town of Falkreath, I instead take the right hand road up around the back of the buildings and up atop a hill. We soon find a track leading towards the mountains where the glade is marked on my map, so I head along it; only to find that it leads to a ruined tower just inside the trees. A broken sign outside it marks it as Peak's Shade Tower, and its only occupant is a spriggan. As much as I hate killing these forest guardians, I don't hesitate to raise my crossbow and shoot first, slaying the creature in one shot.

The chest inside the tower doesn't hold much, but there are still a couple of things of worth inside, so after tucking my proceeds into my bag I return to the road and continue in the north-easterly direction that it leads. A little way beyond where the road through Falkreath re-joins our path, a pair of bandits guard a wooden structure constructed across the road. Crouching just in front of a nearby bush, I manage to snipe one then the other without either noticing me or having time to react. One of them, however, must have fallen onto a lever or something, because two boarded panels, one on each side of the structure, fall to release a load of large rocks onto the road. One of the boulders hits an unfortunate elk who had chosen that moment to run underneath, killing the poor beast in one blow.

About half a mile up the road, we encounter a troll hanging around where another track up into the mountains joins the road. While the beast is attempting to look threatening by jumping and pummelling at the ground, I raise my crossbow and land one good shot in its third eye, before finishing it off using my Fire Breath Shout.

Following the track, we approach a small brook babbling down the rocks – and a trio of bandits welcome us to their tiny camp. Shooting a crossbow while walking backwards is no mean feat, but I somehow manage not to trip over anything while slaying the trio. When the last falls, I turn to see Serana has only just caught up. I don't know what could have – oh, wait. I think I understand the delay.

I take advantage of the tanner's rack to create leather and lessen the weight of my bag before continuing up the track and across a part where a landslide has covered the path. We're beyond the snowline now, and the wind is almost strong enough to blow us off of the mountain, but somehow we manage to make our way towards a cave that must be our destination.

"This must be the place." Serana says as we step inside, beyond the point where the snow has been blown in. It's quite dark, and moss hangs from the rock and a fallen log across a miniature chasm. The roof is high enough for the other small trees to flourish.

"Hmph… not very impressive, is it?" My vampire companion grumbles as we balance across the log. "If this ends up being a wasted trip, your friend Dexion and I are going to have some words when we get back."

Just as she finishes her complaint, we enter the main cavern, and by the Nine it is amazing! A crack in the roof allows a beam of light to hit a spot in the centre of the cavern, and the walls rise steadily, covered in bushes and flowers, most of which are surrounded by beautiful big brown moths. A few trees dot the cave, a couple of which I've never seen before; pretty pink flowers cover the branches instead of leaves. Those must be Canticle Trees.

"Wow – look at this place! No-one's been here in centuries. I doubt there's any other place like it in Skyrim. It's beautiful!" A very sudden change of tune from Serana.

I descend the steps cut into the rock, and head towards a plinth near the beam of light, upon which, somehow floating, is a strange double-handled knife – the Draw Knife. I take it and settle it in my hands, the wooden handles carved so that they fit perfectly in the palm.

"Well, we got the knife. Now all we need to do is track down one of those Canticle Trees."

There is one growing nearby, so I approach the short trunk and carefully scrape off a length of bark and tuck it up my sleeve. I attempt to replace the knife, but it just won't stay, so I tuck it into my bag – maybe Dexion can do something about it, being a Moth Priest.

"Hope the moths like that bark as much as Dexion said they would." Serana mumbles, and I head towards a small swarm of them. They immediately catch the scent of the bark up my sleeve, and start fluttering around me instead of the yellow flowers.

"Look at them… they've definitely taken a liking to you. And unless I'm seeing things, you're starting to… glimmer." I start trotting around the cavern, heading for every group of moths I see, until I have quite a number flittering around me. I feel so pretty!

"Whoa!" Serana says, and even I can see the glow around me, and the moths are… singing, is the only word I can find to describe it. "I think that might have been what we were waiting for. Let's head back up there and see if we can read the scrolls."

I head back to the centre of the cavern, making sure the moths can keep up with me, and when we reach the beam of light I retrieve the Elder Scrolls from my bag, and unfurl the first.

My surroundings disappear, and all I can see is the outline of Skyrim's north-western border. I let the scroll re-roll itself, and I open the second, adding a river to the image along with some mountains. This must be Haafingar I can see! Reading the third completes the image, adding the rest of the mountains, the roads and the symbols for Solitude and our destination, near the spring of the northern tributary of the Karth River. The image fades, and all I can see is a brilliant screen of white for a few seconds, until it fades, and my eyes readjust.

"Are you okay?" Serana asks worriedly. "Almost thought I lost you there… you went as white as the snow."

"Don't worry; I'm fine." I try and reassure her.

"I never trusted those damn scrolls. Who knows what those things could have done to you… just look at Dexion. What about Auriel's Bow? Do you know where we can find it?"

"It's in a place called Darkfall Cave."

"Then it's almost over. We can finally put an end to this ridiculous prophecy. Where is this Darkfall Cave?"

Wary of any followers, I respond: "The scroll gave me its exact location."

"Then let's get going. I want to get there before my father has a chance to track us down."

Judging by the gargoyle lumbering down the stairs towards us, it's already too late. I hurriedly draw my crossbow and slay the beast before it can get any closer, and Serana then raises it to aid us against the three thralls following it. The poor people – though probably bandits before being enthralled – have no chance to fight back. Leaving their corpses behind, I feel a small pang of regret that we have sullied the place by leading them here in the first place.

I guess it was lucky chance that I was sneaking up the stairs, as the pair of vampires controlling the thralls suddenly appear around the corner to see what happened – and die just as fast as their minions.

Along the trail outside, we are attacked again twice by vampires before we reach the road, and since the sun set while we were in the Glade, the creatures are in their element, putting up a stronger fight than those we've fought in daylight. Time to see what Falkreath has to offer by way of services, I turn down the road towards the town, famous for its graveyard.

"Did you see a dog out there?" a guard asks as we approach the edge of the town.

"No; some wolves, but no dogs."

"Ah, well." He sighs. "The blacksmith is offering a reward for a dog he saw on the road. I was hoping you'd seen it. I guess I'll stay on the lookout. Keep your nose clean while you're here, outsider." He returns to watching the road, and I lead Serana through the town to the Dead Man's Drink.

At least the bedrooms are quiet, even if the common room isn't!


End file.
